Karandaaz Pakistan is thrilled to announce the inaugural Challenge Round for Digital Financing for Agriculture 2023. This groundbreaking initiative features a challenge grant designed to catalyze the development, testing, and support of innovative solutions aimed at revolutionizing access to finance for farmers. The grant will fund ideas and initiatives that address the hurdles faced by smallholder farmers in securing formal credit. These obstacles include high interest rates, collateral challenges, and cumbersome procedures, which often force farmers into the arms of exploitative informal lenders.
The challenge grant specifically targets ideas and solutions that not only enhance access to finance and financial inclusion but also bolster the financial resilience of low-income farmers. This is achieved by aligning innovation and modern technology with the unique needs of this underserved demographic.
Please follow the link to know more and apply.
Karandaaz aims to reduce the gender gap in financial inclusion by adopting the following three-pronged strategy:
Entities that are working on solutions in any of the above areas should email their proposals to programofficedfs@karandaaz.com.pk
Proposals shortlisted on the basis of completeness and relevance will be evaluated on the following criteria:
Given the early stage of Pakistan’s digital financial inclusion market and the strong rivalry between competitors, there is inadequate understanding of the pricing and communication of digital financial products and services.
Karandaaz invites applications in two categories to support businesses in understanding the gaps in the market with respect to the uptake and usage of digital financial services through the A/B testing research methodology. The objective is to support DFSPs in testing out different hypotheses on a real consumer base and compare results of different versions to identify the sweet spot for successful interventions.
Conduct A/B tests to identify the optimal communications and agent incentive structures for boosting account adoption and usage:
Conduct A/B tests to identify explore ways to improve uptake of DFS among women. This includes but is not limited to:
The applying firm should have an established customer base or minimum experience of 2 years in the market
For more information or in case of queries, please email at digital.experiments@karandaaz.
Ongoing / Completed Experiments:
Currently there are two ongoing experiments; Finca and Creditper
Launched: September 2019
Status: Applications close.
Through the Financial Inclusion of Women Challenge (FIWC) round, Karandaaz invites proposals for gender-smart, women-centric financial products and services that reflect the needs and preferences of female customers in the financial services marketplace. The goal of the challenge is to provide relevant market players an opportunity to pilot or scale interventions that focus on female market segments and their financial inclusion. Three projects are currently being supported under FIWC. Implementing partners include: Oraan and Techlets managed by the Karandaaz DFS team, and NRSP in collaboration with Karandaaz Innovation. The FIWC Round 2020 is closed and the new round would open at the end of 2021.
Under FIWC round 2, three entities are currently receiving grant support from KRN; Closet, Digi Khata, and TechHive.
Karandaaz Digital has initiated a ‘Pilot to Scale Grants Programme’ with an aim to build models and solutions for the financial inclusion of the unbanked and underbanked population. In addition to empowering those who do not have an account, research suggests that the underbanked population must be targeted with pilots that introduce financial deepening to such segments. The support from Karandaaz will enable private DFS players to test pilots and scale the successful ones and disseminate the learnings for wider use. The programme focuses on the following four categories:
Private sector DFS providers and innovators can apply for these grants. All such interests will be evaluated based on the following scalability assessment matrices:
Details for each domain under the ‘Pilot to Scale Grant Programme’ can be downloaded from the following links:
Please do mention the respective domain under which you wish to apply for grant in the subject line of your email along with a deck of slides or a PDF containing an initial proposal as an attachment and send to programofficedfs@karandaaz.com.pk
Under pilot to scale, three entities are receiving grant support from KRN; Haball, KuickPay, and JS Bank
Karandaaz Design Thinking as a Service Programme has been launched to support the Digital Financial Service Players who offer their services through mobile and web-based platforms. This programme will facilitate the use of design thinking methodology in developing digital financial products and services that not only address the need of the customer but also create a user experience that leads to stickiness and repeats usage. The programme is to support the DFS industry by promoting the use of Human Centred Design approach in developing or improving their product and service design. Karandaaz intends to work with players who can provide a seamless customer experience of digital financial services. Interested DFSPs (Mobile Money operators/Fintech/Startups) may apply by filling out a form that captures the requirements and scope of work. Karandaaz team will conduct its due diligence of the scope and share the requirements with the panel of partner design firms. The design firms will bid on the assignment, and based on an internal selection criteria, the project would be awarded to selected firm. Upon final selection of the design firm, at-least 50% cost of the project will be borne by the applicant while Karandaaz will bear up to 50% or PKR 1 Million (whichever is lower) cost of the total project value.
For more details and to access the application form, visit: https://karandaaz.com.pk/design-thinking/
Study: USD 200,000
Karandaaz conducted a user interface and experience (UIUX) study based on human centered design (HCD) principle. The study concluded that mobile financial services delivered through a well-designed smartphone interface have the capability to extend and improve financial access across Pakistan. An intuitive user interface, taking into account the challenges of the less literate, will enable providers to better serve existing customers as well as expand into new market segments. Karandaaz partnered with one of the leading mobile network operators to develop and redesign its mobile money app using an HCD approach.To access the full study, please click here: https://karandaaz.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Design_Toolkit_Final.pdf
Grant: USD 460,000
Karandaaz conducts a FinTech Disrupt Challenge in Pakistan to identify and support innovative solutions in the FinTech space. The first round was successfully held in 2016 in partnership with the LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship. The second round was held in May 2017 in partnership with IBA’s Aman Centre for Entrepreneurial Development. The recently concluded third round ran in partnership with FinTech Factory, Pakistan’s only FinTech focused accelerator.
Till date, Karandaaz has provided grant funding to 10 FinTechs including Ricult Pakistan, PublishEx, Paysys Labs, Credit Fix, Unikrew Solutions, Agri-Gate, Invoice Waqalah, Matilda Solutions, Love for Data, and Agri Mart.
