what is stopping mainstream financial institutions from adopting the needed innovations. Perhaps here too a lack of competition may removed the pressure to innovate.) Such mismatches are even more apparent when it comes to some of the main services typically offered by mainstream institutions such as the traditional demand deposit/current account with checkbook. This is a costly-to-provide product bundling powerful transactions services with high liquidity for those whose creditworthiness allows them to have their cheques widely accepted. But it is accordingly costly and very risky for poor borrowers, given the price imposed for bounced cheques (NSF charges) – a material risk for low-income households. In reality, poor customers do not need all of the bundled services and will often reject this product but do have a higher demand for a limited service transaction account as has been advocated in advanced economies (Kempson et al. 2000), and implemented in some developing countries. Likewise, common complaints to mainstream institutions about such features as high minimum balance and compulsory collateral for loans can be seen as the consequence of rigid product design (rather than being complacently attributed to unavoidable transactions costs).<sup>9</sup> Other examples of unsuitable product and service design from mainstream institutions are exclusive reliance on interactions that demand onerous paperwork from illiterate or barely literate customers.

Accepting this framework, it is clear that household characteristics, service provider characteristics, and wider environmental characteristics, all are relevant in understanding the importance of different barriers to access and thus potentially in identifying feasible solutions. The framework proposed can be tested and quantified: regression of access indicators on household and other characteristics can help pin down the effects.

A largely parallel discussion applies equally to access of micro enterprises operated by low income people or in low income areas.

Thus “what hinders access” points to a widening of the net for the information gathering beyond the users of financial services to the providers and their management, organization, strategies, cost structures, and operating environment. Key national basic indicators here could include measures of the cost of selected standard services, and availability of information/credit infrastructures.

# _Alternative sources of information_

The discussion clearly points to the need for a range of different sources of information. The needed data collection exercises can conveniently be grouped by the type of respondent, i.e. the person or organization which is supposed to have the information being collected. Essentially there are three, namely _users_ and _providers_ of financial services, and _experts_ of which the first can be subdivided into two classes, _household users_ and _business users_ , giving four types overall. Increasingly the build-up of national statistical collection capability implies that, in many cases, the primary surveys of these

> 9 Certain observers stress psychological aspects such as the values and attitudes of the household as additional types of determinant (the relevance to Islamic households is evident, see also the discussion below of Southern African surveys).

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