Most Malians are unbanked. Four out of five rural Malians do not have access to financial capital to develop economic activities. The lack of data and infrastructure is making it very difficult for financial institutions to target, reach, educate, and serve customers. New technologies can solve this issue as satellite data is available in all regions and mobile money is becoming a very common way of collecting payments.
OKO Finance Ltd. has been established to create index-based insurance products for farmers and distribute them via mobile to un-banked farmers. OKO is working jointly with SUNU Assurances as an underwriter and Orange Money as a payment solution. It is registered as a broker in Mali and conducted initial pilots reaching 450 farmers in total.
The Project
The SCBF intervention aims to:
- Support the soft launch of a drought insurance product for maize farmers;
- Scale-up the distribution model and launch commercially this maize insurance product at a large scale;
- Develop and pilot a drought insurance for cotton farmers to expand the reach of insurance;
- Organise a large-scale launch of the cotton insurance product;
- Support the design of flood insurance for maize and cotton;
- Commercialise this new flood insurance and continue expansion.
OKO Mali expects an outreach of 15’180 maize and 3’300 cotton farmer who will gain resilience to climate risks and have easier access to micro-loans, of which 15’700 will be rural users and 5’500 female users. Upon project completion, OKO should be in a position to generate sufficient revenues to be self-sustainable in Mali, and have a relevant case study to attract financing and expand in other geographies with new partners.
OKO Mali
OKO Finance endorsed by Allianz
Mali
September 2019 – July 2021
CHF 122’450 (40%)
18’480 Smallholder Farmers
Insurance – Agriculture
2019-04
