Knowledge Exchange Smart Subsidies & Guarantees

Helping financially excluded populations gain access to loans presents higher cost and greater risk to financial institutions and clients, but subsidies and guarantees can have limited scale and sustainability. To address this challenge, Opportunity delivers a variety of “smart” subsidies and guarantees, carefully tailored to target populations and markets, designed to provide temporary incentives that stimulate sustainable financial inclusion at scale. This Spotlight Learning Brief summarizes Opportunity's smart-subsidy and guarantee strategy, while highlighting on-going dilemmas.