Don't assume you know what customers want. You need to genuinely ask them. Better yet, you need to engage in a real dialogue, observe daily behaviors, and design an open-minded, joint discovery process.

Projects to pay government benefits and humanitarian aid in electronic form are a boon. They increase security and accountability while decreasing cost. Until now, however, such projects have been isolated, with no worldwide, deliberate, coordinated push.

Over the past few years, the concept of microcredit -- providing working capital loans to micro-entrepreneurs typically in the informal economy -- has come under scrutiny.

In an important coordinated effort, ten pilots around the world are experimenting with a model initially developed by BRAC in Bangladesh that helps extremely poor families build assets and capabilities and ultimately "graduate" into sustainable livelihoods.

The meagre savings that the poor do manage to accumulate are rarely enough and there is a need for insurance against unfortunate events such as going hungry, undernourishment for children, and pulling children out of school.

70% of India's population is excluded from formal financial services that most people reading this blog take for granted. If financial services are to become a reality, they have to be delivered non-traditionally.

A group of academics and entrepreneurs have come up with an innovative idea to solve the "last mile" problem and ensure that disaster relief supplies get to people in need.