The Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme builds on the Government of Bangladesh’s efforts to introduce a citizen-centric culture of innovation in civil service to improve service delivery and make services more inclusive, affordable, reliable and easier to access. This project will provide support to establish institutional mechanisms and improve accountability to accelerate SDG achievements in Bangladesh.

This project will have three components:

1.           Institutionalizing Public Service Innovation and Improving Accountability

2.           Catalyzing Digital Financial Services and Fintech Innovations

3.           Incubating Private Sector-enabled Public Service Innovation

Background of the Assignment: 

Bangladesh’s financial sector has undergone rapid growth and has embraced technology solutions to improve the financial inclusion of the general population. The Bangladesh government continues to make progress on its financial inclusion goals through the implementation of initiatives designed to reach the financially excluded, particularly the poor. Financially included adults made up 47% of the population in 2018, a 10 percentage-point increase from 2017. Banks drove this increase, partly due to the government’s push to expand agent-banking services in rural areas. However, certain segments remain disproportionately unbanked and financial inclusion for women remains a challenge, Overall, Findex shows that 65 percent of Bangladeshi men have accounts while only 36 percent of women have accounts. Also, formal financial institutions have limited reach in rural areas, which restricts the spread of basic financial services among the rural population more specifically towards the female population.

A2I Programme is playing a catalytic role to develop an inclusive financial ecosystem with the support from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. One of the core components of the project is to address the gender gap in financial inclusion and design, develop and implement intervention strategy to reduce the gap.

Aspire to Innovate (a2i) is looking for recruiting a National Consultant- Financial Product Analyst who will be responsible for an assessment study to analyze existing products and services offered to female citizens by the financial service providers in Bangladesh and identify key challenges in adoption and provide solid recommendations.

Objectives:

The overall objective of the assignment will be the following:

• Identify and list gender-focused products and services provided by the financial service providers including but not limited to banks, NBFI, MFS providers, fintech’s, and microfinance institutions.
• Identify the gap of the existing product for different segment of women groups-MSME entrepreneurs, Women working in different formal & informal sectors like Garments Industries, Agriculture sector, urban & rural household etc.
• Provide recommendations based on the findings of the study to bridge the gender gap that financial service providers can adopt for developing and delivering digital financial products & services that are accessible, affordable, and more appropriate for women.

The Scope of the assignment is to conduct a qualitative study to the identification of the current status and assessing the presence of various financial products and services provided by the financial service providers in Bangladesh. The scope of the study would include but not limited to the following:                                   

1. Identify gender-focused products and services provided by the financial service providers including but not limited to banks, MFS providers, fintechs and microfinance institutions.
   • List the financial product and services are available by Banks, BBFIs, MFS Providers, MFISs.   
   • Conduct secondary literature review to identify key constraints and collect customer insights on different product/services available in the market.
2. Conduct gap analysis to identify major challenges of low penetration, access, adoption and usage pattern in gender-focused products and services among different target groups.
   • Identify major challenges of relevant stakeholders (e.g. FSPs, Regulators erc) in the current market practices in the industry, pain points of the customers and reasons of existing gender gap
   • Identify problem statements in different target segment Including but not limited to RMG workers, small Agri entrepreneurs, female-led MSMEs, women engaged in informal sectors, and rural and urban households.
   • Explore the process that the service providers follow to develop these products and services to find out scope of improvement and continue upgrading their products and services if necessary
3. Provide recommendations for minimizing the gap of the existing product and scop for new affordable & low-cost innovative financial product/services.
   • Recommend on how financial service providers and fintech companies can explore digital means and come up with accessible, affordable products and services especially for the female citizens to reduce gender gap.
   • Provide recommendations based on the problem statements identified for different target segment to recommend innovative solutions in financial ecosystem with a dedicated focus on catering the need of financial services (savings, credit, payment, investment, and insurance).
   • Provide insight on how FSPs could adjust or modify their existing offerings to make their products and services more accessible and user friendly to reduce the gender gap

Deliverables should include the following:

Supervision, Reporting authority and Performance Evaluation:

The National Consultant- Financial Product Analyst will work under the direct supervision of the Programme Manager_Digital Financial Service, Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme. Therefore, the activities of the incumbent will be regularly monitored by the Programme Manager_Digital Financial Service, Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme.

Timeframe and deadlines:

The assignment will be for 50 working days within 3 months.

Duty Station and expected places of travel:  Dhaka

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism

Functional Competencies:

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to assign tasks for system analysis to system designing and development for ICT initiatives especially mobile apps.
• Ability to lead business processes re-engineering, pilot implementation of new mobile apps systems and affect staff behavioral/ attitudinal change
• Ability to lead formulation and monitoring of management projects
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting.

Management and Leadership

• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities
• Leads teams effectively and shows mentoring as well as conflict resolution skills
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Promotes knowledge management in the project and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills

Language Required: High level of communication and interpersonal skills and experience in working effectively in a multi-cultural and multi stakeholders’ environment and fluency in English is required

Academic Qualifications:

• Postgraduate degree in Finance/ Business administration/ Economics/Finance/ Investment management or other related fields

Experience:

• Minimum 10 years of professional experience Banking/Finance/Research.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in research/consultancy service at national/international level.
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in conducting diagnostics, research and assessments on financial sector issues.
• Previous experience of working with government counterparts/UN system on similar nature of assignment

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual Consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

b) Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical Criteria weight: 70%

• Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% point in technical criteria would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria

• Educational qualification (20 marks)
• Experience on research/consultancy service at national/international level. (20 marks)
• Experience in conducting diagnostics/research and assessments on financial sector issues. (15 marks)
• Experience of working with government counterparts/ UN system on similar nature of assignment. (15 marks)

Financial Evaluation (Total 30 marks)

All technical qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals received points according to the following formula:

p = y (µ/z)

where:

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

Financial Milestone

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Proposal

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Personal CV, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
• Financial Proposal: Financial Proposal has to be submitted through a standard interest and availability template which can be downloaded from the link below:

http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.docx