Digital credit scoring for affordable housing finance: Syntellect and Reall in urban India

A promising field of housing finance innovation is digital approaches to assessing the creditworthiness of low-income borrowers, based on the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to ‘alternative’ customer data. These reduce the risk of lending to underserved customers, many of whom work in the informal sector and lack formal credit histories. This article introduces and explores the emerging application of digital credit scoring technologies to affordable housing in India, through the practitioner lens of Syntellect – a Mumbai-based fintech firm – and their investor Reall, an innovator in climate-smart affordable housing. Syntellect has developed proprietary software called RightProfile – a unique customer profiler that caters to the unbanked, new to banking, and new to credit segment with a focus on informal micro-entrepreneurs. The article shares Syntellect and Reall’s experience to date, situating these within broader affordable housing trends and reflecting on the transferability of RightProfile outside India.

Building the business case for green affordable housing

The emerging business-driven case for green affordable housing reveals six drivers of profitability: 1) access to international green finance flows for better financing terms; 2) minimized incremental cost through early planning; 3) faster sales through market differentiation; 4) savings on utility bills for owners and renters; 5) lowered default rates and superior collateral value for green mortgages; and 6) fiscal and non-fiscal incentives from local or national governments. Additionally, fiscal and non-fiscal incentives from local or national governments can further catalyse the market. Case studies from several emerging markets show that the right combination of government incentives (including non-fiscal policies), education and technical assistance to developers (including a no-cost option), and green finance (including green bonds and green mortgages) can transform housing markets. In order to reflect the total life-time cost of ownership, the concept of affordability in housing should include the impact of resource-efficiency and resilience on the costs and risks of ownership.

Inclusive housing programmes to stimulate the economy and improve health outcomes after COVID-19

Countries around the globe have experienced the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In many countries in the Global South, interventions in the housing sector can support public and private investments and have large economic stimulus effects. This article develops a series of principles that would ensure investments in housing not only serve as economic stimuli but deliver the basis for long-term improvement in housing conditions and overall community wellbeing and health by being inclusive and sustainable. This article proposes five principles and illustrates how to apply them in core areas that would typically be included in a housing stimulus package: 1) focus on supporting housing for the underserved middle- and lower-income households; 2) inclusion of both ownership and rental markets; 3) inclusion of both formal and informal housing markets; 4) incorporating communities; and 5) avoiding long-term negative effects on housing and housing finance market development.

Using a franchise structure to scale affordable housing internationally

Capital investment as high as US$16 tn is required to address the shortage of adequate and affordable housing worldwide. Market-driven housing approaches that produce quality units, reduce dwelling costs, and provide access to a range of capital sources can help to solve this challenge. This article describes the experience of a social enterprise in Mexico that is taking its proven, market-driven housing solution to countries in Africa using a joint venture franchising company to execute a master franchising strategy. Its experience and the innovative approach it used to scale internationally offer useful insights and lessons for housing practitioners, policymakers, and researchers.

Book review: Taking Shelter: Housing Finance for the World’s Poor, edited by Patrick McAllister and Daniel Rozas

Taking Shelter: Housing Finance for the World’s Poor, edited by Patrick McAllister and Daniel Rozas. Considering that decent shelter is essential to the quality of human life, the meagre attention given by the development finance sector on how to provide it is shocking. The need for a secure place to live garners surprisingly little focus outside the relatively small housing subsectors of urban development, and water and sanitation.

Editorial: Housing

I have an early memory of entering my childhood home: entering through a screened back door, I pass a door frame where my height, along with that of my brother and sisters, was faithfully recorded through the years in ascending pencil marks and corresponding dates. In the kitchen, with its garish 1970s red and orange wallpaper, I recall seeing my mother waiting for me with some delicious snack. Over the years, I have called 19 different places home, on four continents, and could conjure such evocative memories for each.

Beyond building: how social norms and networks shape mason construction practices in incremental homebuilding

How do low-income households and masons make house construction decisions? A three-country study examined social norms, networks, and information flows that influence construction practices in Kenya, India, and Peru. The study used a suite of qualitative research strategies, including desk research, site observation, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews, to examine households and informal construction service providers, and the interactions between them. The research sought to answer the following questions: 1) How do households and individuals make housing decisions? 2) What are the information flows, key influences, and social norms that steer these decisions? and 3) How can programmes leverage knowledge about norms to improve the quality of home construction? Findings covered areas of gender, disaster resilience, and construction labour – this article focuses on the latter. Ultimately the paper argues that designing impactful programmes for low-income housing markets requires understanding and incorporating these social norms, networks, and information flows.

Field perspectives on the economic impacts of COVID-19 on women with disabilities in Bangladesh and Nepal

COVID-19 has surfaced many of the inequities to which people with disabilities have always been vulnerable. Moreover, women with disabilities face even greater risks than their male counterparts. The current article highlights the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women with disabilities in Bangladesh and Nepal from the vantage point of two organizations working directly with women with disabilities in these countries. What is clear is that governments need to take further steps to address this crisis while also implementing programmes and services that promote economic security for women with disabilities and their families. The work done by organizations of women with disabilities is critical for documenting the daily impacts of the pandemic and helping to mitigate its negative effects.

Editorial: COVID-19 economic resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the gaping inequities in market systems the world over while it has exacerbated those inequities without mercy. As I write this editorial, my own sore recently injected arm reminds me that there is massive disparity even in access to vaccines among countries and within countries. And, as always, it is the most marginalized that carry the burden of suffering – vulnerable women, extreme poor households, informal workers, communities with minority status, people with disability, youth living on the edge.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on microfinance institutions in Indonesia

The paper aims to analyse the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on microfinance institutions (MFIs) and identify mitigation and adaptation measures to cope with the situation. An online survey and focus group discussions were employed to capture how far the COVID-19 pandemic affects MFIs’ business. The results show that MFIs’ performance is negatively affected due to the COVID-19 crisis as their major customers, micro and small enterprises (MSEs), have experienced a contraction. MFIs have implemented several mitigation and adaptation measures to cope with the situation and future shocks. These results provide an overview of how far the COVID-19 crisis affects MFIs which can help the government design policies that can support MFIs and MSEs to survive. However, some issues related to methodology, such as the inability to capture complex and profound information, survey monitoring, and response rate, influenced the analysis so that the research may lack generalizability. Thus, a more holistic methodology is needed to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic comprehensively.