Sub-Saharan Africa’s youth population1 today totals nearly 200 million, almost 78 percent living on less than US$2 a day.2 These young people are disproportionately unemployed, and less than 5 percent have access to formal financial services. While interest in providing financial services to young people in Africa is growing, many providers are not yet equipped to develop and offer products to lowincome youth. Additionally, formal financial service providers (FSPs) are reticent to serve this population, given pervasive negative stereotypes about youth, the perceived cost of reaching them, and potentially low return on savings, loans and other products (Muñoz, Perdomo and Hopkins, 2013).