Mobilization of microsavings can play an important role in the expansion and deepening of the outreach of MFIs. In an effort to examine access to microsavings facilities this paper:
* Looks at some elements characterizing the current mainstream of microfinance policy and practice;
* Discusses the conceptual framework on microsavings addressing the clients' as well as the institutional perspective;
* Analyses the conceptual issues in a comparative analysis of seven case studies from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The paper concludes that the mobilization of small and micro savings responds to the effective demand of poor people and is a commercially viable source of funds. The paper also makes the following suggestions:
* For microsavings to become a commercially viable business, product design must respond to the preferences of customers;
* Marketing and service delivery strategies must help to create a close relationship between the depository and its potential depositors;
* Special attention must be paid to developing appropriate management capacity;
* The complexity of deposit taking also requires effective incentive and bonus systems to stimulate staff performance;
* On the organizational level, streamlining of operations and procedures has to be undertaken to reduce operating costs.
