Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty (CFSP)

The Consortium oversees the development of a growing body of research that seeks to put financial services for the poor, with an emphasis on the impact of savings, second generation banking, and policy, on a firm empirical and theoretical foundation and serves as a reliable guide to effective action. It is composed of top-tier researchers across a variety of institutions who work to understand the impact of financial products, the macro and micro policies that are associated with financial access, and technological innovations in financial service delivery.

The Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty (CFSP) is a private research organization of leading and emerging economists. Our goal is to improve the lives of the world’s poor and to reduce poverty through helping to identify, define and develop more efficient financial systems. We strive to generate tangible results that provide meaningful lessons for policymakers, researchers and stakeholders.

The Consortium is based at the University of Chicago and led by Professor Townsend of MIT, who serves as faculty director and principal investigator. We bring together diverse scholars from around the world, who use a variety of approaches, and who study a wide range of developing countries. We support their research through three funding mechanisms: member grants, seed grants and request for proposal grants. (Read more about our grantmaking process.)

CFSP also facilitates an important series of ongoing workshops that are designed to foster productive dialogues and scholarly progress in specific topic areas. Currently, there are three such workshops underway: Flow of Funds Accounts, Savings and the Financial Underpinnings of Macro Models, and the Optimal Design of Payments Systems.

CFSP was established in 2009 by a grant to the University of Chicago from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.