by Brett Matthews | Mar 16, 2017 | Design, Microfinance, Numeracy, Orality, Technology
“Make memory unnecessary: put the required information in the world.” Don Norman. The Design of Everyday Things Background In 2012, on the invitation of Stuart Rutherford, a wise mentor I was fortunate to meet early in my career, I visited the rural SafeSave...
by Brett Matthews | Feb 13, 2017 | Design, Microfinance, Numeracy, Orality, Uncategorized
Building on research in Oral information management tools (2014), My Oral Village announces the publication of new research into oral cognitive capabilities and practices as they affect financial inclusion. The paper, entitled Oral financial numeracy: a hypothesis and...
by Brett Matthews | Aug 15, 2015 | Design, Microfinance, Numeracy, Orality, Technology
Earlier this year The Economist proclaimed the coming “Planet of the Phones.” Predicting that “by 2020 80% of adults will have a supercomputer in their pocket,” it added that smartphone ownership could bring large populations into the financial systems of developing...
by Brett Matthews | Feb 13, 2015 | Microfinance, Numeracy, Orality, The village
There has been much discussion of financial literacy in recent decades. But if innumerate users of financial services must rely on their children or MFI staff to know if their financial records are correct, how can financial literacy courses help? If people don’t have...
by Brett Matthews | Jan 7, 2013 | Microfinance, Village institutions
In 2001 I outlined a proposal to a large charity to deliver savings to Cambodian villagers. The British director was quiet until I finished, when he announced: “there is only one difficulty with this proposal. Villagers don’t have any money – they are too poor to...
by Brett Matthews | Oct 30, 2012 | Microfinance, Orality
Why are there not finger-counting icons and/or tallies (see right) on every passbook owned by every illiterate client in microfinance? Arrayed as a legend along the bottom or the side of the passbook, or printed on the back cover, this provides support to...