Savings and Investments by the Low Income Segment in Capital Markets: A Case Of XENO

23/08/202320/09/2023

FSD Uganda

This report shares findings from a pilot intervention on savings and investments by the low income segment in capital markets. In this pilot, FSD Uganda focused on testing the viability of leveraging mobile phone and mobile telecommunications technology to increase access to investment products by the low income investor market segment. The intervention ran for two years and sought to address the problem of limited and or no access to financial investment products such as collective investment schemes (CIS) among the low income market segment.

For this pilot, we partnered with XENO a licensed fund manager and collective investment schemes manager regulated by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and the Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority.

Three major drivers of this limited access to financial investment products were identified at the intervention design stage; low levels of income, cumbersome Know-Your-Customer processes at the time of on-boarding of the customer, and the limited accessibility of the customer engagement points.

XENO sought to address this problem by leveraging the mobile phone to increase accessibility and designing a more appropriate product that would make it easier for the low-income market segment to actively participate in the CIS market.