Does a Motivational Workshop Enhance the Opening of Saving Accounts Among the Unbanked Village Defense Party (VDP) Members? Evidence From Randomized Controlled Trial

1. Introduction

Financial inclusion has often been termed as an instrument for economic well-being [1], women’s household-decision making [2], achieving sustainable development goals [3], and women empowerment [4]. Although financial inclusion has a positive impact on reducing energy poverty [5], rural and urban income gap [6], and income inequality [7], only 53% of Bangladeshi adults have bank accounts[8]. The number of unbanked people is decreasing globally Still, a remarkable gap is observed from developed to developing countries, region to region, urban to rural, and even between males and females regarding access to financial institutions [8,9]. Despite having guidelines and policy recommendations from the World Bank, according to the Global Findex Report 2021, globally 1.4 billion people are financially excluded; Simply they do not have a financial account. Typically, in every context poor adult, marginalized people, ethnic minorities, and women are generally financially excluded [10,11]. One pertinent example of the diversified picture is that account ownership in developed countries is almost 91%, whereas it is only 41% in developing countries [11,12]. In this regard, Conroy [13] states that lower access to financial services happens in developing countries because of informal livelihood strategies. Although bank accounts are an important part of daily economic activities, developing countries are still lagging in achieving universal financial access [9]. Due to the lack of financial accounts, the unbanked people have to rely on risky and inconvenient way of receiving, sending and transferring money [9].

Literature suggest that greater financial access is closely related to low account opening and maintaining cost, proximity of financial institutions, legal rights and political stability [14]. Previous experimental studies mainly focus on zero account opening and maintaining fees, easy application process, money subsidy, physical proximity [9,15] financial education [16,17,18], financial literacy program, soft intervention and saving nudges [19] for opening accounts. This study focuses on the impact of motivational workshop on opening accounts through causality. We adopt motivational workshop as our treatment for two reasons. Firstly, we consider the context of our study. Secondly, we need a cost effective and replicable intervention appropriate for developing countries since low-cost intervention is suitable and viable for the policy makers [20]. We apply randomized controlled trial experiment in this study. The underpinning assumption is that motivation is the driving force for pursuing a positive change and expected behavioral outcome.

One of the essential steps of financial inclusion is possessing a bank account [21]. Account ownership is the fundamental condition for financial inclusion [22] and a vital instrument for measuring financial inclusion [23]. Moreover, Allen et al. [24] adopted “opening bank accounts” as a proxy variable for measuring financial inclusion. Therefore, account ownership is the step of reaching financial inclusion from exclusion. Account ownership has several benefits; firstly, it helps to accumulate savings [25] in formal financial institutions since hand cash is prone to expenditure. Secondly, accumulated saving can emancipate the low-income groups from the exploitation of the local money lenders. Furthermore, people can receive, save, and send money through a transactional account. Saving is necessary for mitigating financial shocks against any disaster.

In addition, emphasizing the importance of bank accounts or accounts in other financial institutions, Aguila et al. [26] mention that marginalized and minority groups can contribute to the development of society and economy by participating in the financial system. In this regard, Iqbal et al. [27] opine that everybody must have a bank account to make transactions and receive payments quickly. A savings account is essential for boosting gross domestic product (GDP), income, investment, and social and economic status [28]. Bank account ownership is the entry point of the formal financial system resulting significant impact on saving and shifting from informal to formal saving methods ([29]. Bangladesh government adopted the National Financial Inclusion Strategy of Bangladesh (NFIS-B) for inclusive and sustainable financial inclusion and it views financial inclusion as an effective way for poverty reduction [30]. Account ownership is necessary for accessing financial services such as payments, savings, and credit [31]. Moreover, a formal financial account can encourage saving, access to credit, easy transfer of wages, remittances and government payments [32]. Access to financial service especially for the poor is imperative for savings, inclusive economic development and poverty reduction [33,34]. Lack of access to financial services has a negative impact on social inclusion since financial exclusion is often termed social exclusion [35]. In addition, inclusive access to financial institutions improves productive consumption and production patterns [13].

1.1. Literature review on financial access

Yan & Qi [18] assessed the role of family education on access to financial institutions based on 22,242 data from 27 countries; their findings claim that family education positively impacts opening bank accounts by 1.9 percent. In another study, Grimes et al. [16] examine the long-term effect of economic education on having bank accounts. They observe that high school courses in economics and business studies have a positive impact on having a bank account. In addition, Karakara and Osabuohien, [36] studied the effect of household information and communication technology access (such as radio, television, internet, mobile phone, and computer) concerning West African bank patronage. The study highlights some socioeconomic factors for adopting ICT in households, resulting the bank patronage increases in Ghana (15%) and Burkina Faso (48%). Moreover, the inclination to ICT has a positive impact on access and use of banking service [37]. Furthermore, Cole et al. [38] through an experimental study show a 12.70% take-up rate by concluding that financial education (knowledge) modestly affects opening accounts, whereas little subsidy (price) increases the demand for opening financial accounts.

Blanco et al. [39] Studied the effects of educational programs on the adaptation of retirement accounts named my retirement accounts (myRA) among the 142 Hispanics who did not have retirement accounts. The study found that 12 percent rise in opening myRA accounts among Hispanics. However, financial literacy training has a positive impact on access to financial institutions, but the literature lacks concrete conclusion about the duration of training for instance a two-hour session for migrants [40], a two-day long training varies from 4 hours to 9 hours for migrants [41], a two-hour session for elderly people [42] 18 hours long over two days training for migrants and 8 hours long over two days for migrant family members [43]. Considering the limitation of standard time duration, in this study we used a motivational workshop.

Some experimental studies have been conducted on financial access and saving among unbanked people. Dupas et al. [9] conducted a randomized controlled trial experiment by randomly assigning no account opening and maintenance fee, easy form-filling process, and covering expenses for documentation through the voucher as an intervention in Malawi, Uganda, and Chile. The study finds that the intervention has a positive impact on opening accounts among the treatment groups in Malawi, Uganda, and Chile. In another experimental study, Prina [15] also offers no opening and maintenance fee and physical proximity through the local bank branches to the slum dwellers women in Nepal. The study finds a high take-up rate and active account use during the study period. Fitzpatrick [44] also observed account ownership increases by 12% points for families with children by transferring child benefits through electronic transfer in the UK. Hoy et al. [19] conducted another experimental study in Papua New Guinea and found that the soft intervention program such as literacy workshops, no-fee packages and smoothing documentation has a positive impact on opening accounts.

The Muslim community in many countries refrained from formal banking sector for the lack of Islamic financial institutions since "interest" is strictly prohibited due to Shari’ah compliance. The Global Findex (2021) reports that 10% of people worldwide are financially excluded due to religious concerns. In this regard, Sharia-compliant credit from the formal institutions can enhance the financial access of small-scale Muslim farmers in Afghanistan [45]. Several studies advocate for different approaches to the financial access of Muslims such as the Islamic finance system [46], Islamic microfinance [47] and Islamic pawnbroking [1].

A good number of studies focus on the determinants of financial inclusion. Lotto [48] mentions that gender, education, age, and income are vital factors for financial inclusion. Njanike [28] identifies demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, and education are crucial factors besides residential identity, employment status, and location. Hinson et al. [49] mention that distance, accessibility, and friends’ recommendation are essential factors for opening bank accounts in Ghana.

Through mobile phone technology, financial inclusion brought a remarkable change in Sub-Saharan African countries. N’dri & Kakinaka [50] Studied financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual nonmonetary welfare and concluded that financial inclusion through mobile money has a positive role in alleviating poverty. Akhter &Khalily [51] find that households having migrants are 43% more likely to adopt mobile financial services; on the other hand, female households are less likely to take up MFS. Although digital financial services significantly bloomed during covid situation, still the poor, rural residents, and older people are lagging in adopting digital financial services [52].

1.2. Literature review on motivation

Seshan & Yang [53] studied the impact of a "motivational workshop" on financial decision-making among Indian migrants in Qatar and observed that a motivational workshop positively impacts financial decision-making. Moreover, Allen et al. [14] mention that the characteristics of the target people need to be considered for adopting a financial inclusion policy. For this, we accept a motivational workshop as our treatment. Phung et al. [54] emphasized on the role of motivation in intervention programs and financial literacy training. Diskin & Hodgins [55] find a motivational session positively impacts on reducing gambling behavior and less expenditure on gambling among the gamblers. Furthermore, Mahadeva, [56] suggests that motivational training is one of the alternatives for financial inclusion of underserved populations in India. Finally, as like as Blanco et al. [39] we combine both relevant information along with motivation for providing a successful intervention.

1.3. Background

In the past government distributed public transfers through a coupon or check, but with the advancement of technology, money transfers have become digitalized. Therefore, it is convenient to transfer money to the beneficiary’s account [44]. Considering the advantages of financial inclusion, The World Bank urged to achieve Universal Financial Access (UFA) by 2020. The primary goal of UFA 2020 is to ensure financial access for all so that everyone has a transactional account or a technological instrument for saving, sending, and receiving money¹. The world bank states that approximately 73% of globally unbanked people live in 25 countries and Bangladesh is one of the identified countries². On the other hand, the Global Findex Report 2021 identifies Bangladesh as one of the seven countries where globally 4% unbanked people. Based on another data source³, the account ownership among Bangladeshi adults is 37.69%. This percentage ranks Bangladesh 90th globally, 26th among Asian countries, and 4th among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries in terms of account ownership. On the contrary, the National Financial Inclusion Strategy of Bangladesh (NFIS-B) sets a goal to achieve 100% of adults must have a financial account by 2025. Bangladesh government has adopted NFIS-B for improving the financial inclusion status aiming to achieve inclusive and sustainable financial inclusion for all through digitalization and innovation.

1.3.1. Village Defense Party (VDP)

Village Defense Party (VDP) is the village-level unit working under Ansar and VDP organization. Administratively, every village has 64 VDP members consisting of 32 males and 32 females⁴. According to the organogram of Ansar⁵ and VDP, there are approximately 6 million VDP members in Bangladesh. One must have some criteria for being a VDP member. The mandatory requirements for being a VDP are at least 18 years of age, possession of a national identity card (NID) or chairman certificate issued from the union office for supporting citizenship, no criminal records, at least eight years of school education, and a ten-day village-based basic training⁶. The VDP members do not receive any fixed and regular salary from the organization. They get only some remunerations based on their part-time engagements in election duty, festival duty for maintaining security, checking guards, and maintaining queues for easy movement of people. VDP membership is an identity and organizational attachment, not an occupation. The government formed the VDP members to provide quick response to assist in disaster management, and help law and order enforcement agencies in crisis⁷. VDP members are the local community people within the area. VDP members are generally farmers, housewives, students, employed and unemployed youth. Since the VDP members are economically marginalized in rural areas, other motivations for being a VDP member are the opportunities for free vocational training provided by the organization around the year and a 5% job quota in low-ranking government jobs (3rd and 4th class only)⁸.

1.3.2 Bangladesh Bank’s initiatives for financial access

The central bank of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bank (BB), has adopted measures for achieving universal access to financial institutions. To achieve the objectives, BB introduced No-Frill accounts for the farmers, the impoverished, the social safety net beneficiaries, ready-made garments workers, marginalized and vulnerable sections of society. No-frill account requires only 10 Bangladeshi takas (0.094 USD= 10 Bangladeshi Taka), to open an account as an initial amount. This No-frill account has no yearly maintenance charge. BB also extended free account opening options for the street urchins and working children through the assistance of NGO personnel for maintaining the account. School banking accounts are another initiative of Bangladesh Bank for the students to achieve financial inclusion. Besides, the innovative account opening provisions, BB has also launched a financial literacy program for imparting financial literacy knowledge on its website⁹.

Bangladesh has a diversified banking system, including state-owned commercial banks, Islamic banks, specialized banks for sectoral development, and private and foreign commercial banks in a total of 10942 bank branches under 61 scheduled banks¹⁰. BB has issued official directives to open 50% of branches in rural areas since 2010 so that the rural people can avail themselves of banking facilities. Moreover, BB has also instructed the banks since 2013 to operate agent banking services where branch banking is not possible due to geographical barriers. Considering the proliferation of mobile phone access and technological advancement, BB has licensed mobile financial services since 2011 to many banks. Furthermore, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) booths, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) branches, and agricultural branches are operating in Bangladesh for smoothening banking facilities. Re-financing agricultural loans, SMEs, and women entrepreneurs is the other strategy of BB for achieving universal access to financial institutions. Besides the banking system, other financial institutions such as cooperatives, micro-financial institutions, and insurance companies are available in rural areas [57]. Despite having many financial institutions in Bangladesh, account ownership is low in Bangladesh. As a result, financial inclusion portrays a diversified image and there is a higher exclusion in rural areas than urban areas.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. The study area

The study was conducted at Dhubil Union under the Raiganj sub-district in Sirajganj, Bangladesh. The area lies in the northern part of Bangladesh (Figure 1). In Bangladesh, the union is the smallest administrative division and the initial step of the local government system. There are 17 villages under this union¹¹. We purposively selected the study area for the availability of financially excluded people since the financial inclusion index value of Sirajganj was 0.548% in 2014 [58]. Moreover, people in the area have homogenous occupations. Most of them depend on agriculture-based activities for their livelihood. There is no geographical barrier for road transport communication to the local hat (weekly market) and bazaar. The literacy rate (7 years+) of the study area between males and females is 39.1 and 31.6, respectively. The area of the union is 16.75 km¹². There are nine government and private banks in the study area. Furthermore, many microfinance institutions, cooperatives, and mobile financing service points are available in the area.

2.2. Sampling and data collection

We purposively choose samples from village defense party members. A list of unbanked VDP members was prepared with the help of the District Commandant’s office of Ansar and VDP, Sirajganj. Finally, 505 unbanked VDP members were identified out of 1088 VDP members from this study area. For preparing the list of unbanked VDP members, we asked whether they have any financial accounts or not. Several other questions were asked for reconfirmation of their financial exclusion such as whether he or she applied for any loan from any financial institutions last month. Even we asked the elder people whether they had been nominated for any social safety net program from the government last month or not. We were conscious of creating the list to avoid the mixture of treatment and control from the same household. We did not allow two people in the sample frame from the same household. After confirming those issues, the list was prepared and finalized. The detail of the village-wise sample is presented in Appendix A (Figure A1).

The baseline survey was conducted among the unbanked VDP members only with the help of enumerators¹³. A short training session was arranged for the enumerators before baseline data collection in September 2022. The baseline data was collected by visiting the respondent’s residence. Some houses were revisited due to the unavailability of respondents at home since no prior information was given for visiting their houses. We have collected both demographic and household data such as age, gender, education, marital status, family size, land size, total income and total expenditure, distance from banks and financial institutions, and possessions of mobile and internet users. Descriptions of all variables are presented in Table 1. After completing baseline data, the respondents were divided into two groups, treatment and control, by simple randomization. The sample size in the treatment and the control group is 240 and 265 respectively. We conducted our follow-up survey in November 2022. Finally, we successfully collected all data since the enumerators were chosen from each village who are acquainted with the respondents.

2.3 Research design

Figure 2. Research Design

Figure 2. Research Design

2.4. Treatment Assignment

We send messages to the treatment group to attend the motivational workshop. Before the treatment assignment, the union VDP leaders communicated with all the treatment group members so that they were well-informed about joining the workshop. The treatment group members were invited to a school one time for the treatment assignment. The session was successful since all the members attended the session. The attendance rate is cent percent due to the union leader’s communication and treatment group members' acknowledgment of the session.

The local NGO manager and agent bank representative were invited to conduct the workshop. They are well-informed about the national financial inclusion strategy before they conduct the workshop. The synopsis of the workshop is shown in Table 2. They conducted a one-hour workshop. The workshop was highly interactive followed by questions and answers during and after the session. The local NGO manager and agent bank representative explained about the institutional offer, benefits, process, and required documents for opening a savings account such as application forms, NID card, and passport-size photographs. In conclusion, they emphasized that opening a savings account depends on their willingness and they could apply now or later for opening a savings account. However, no restriction was imposed on them in choosing financial institutions for opening savings accounts.

2.5. Data Analysis approach

The main focus of this study is to examine the impact of motivational workshop on opening saving accounts among unbanked VDP members. Since we randomly assigned our treatment, the mean difference in outcome between the treatment and the control is the unbiased estimation of the average treatment effect (ATE). Theoretically,

ATE=E[$Y_1$|T=1]- E[$Y_0$|T=0]

This study applies the following equation to estimate the impact of motivational workshop on opening saving accounts:

$$Y_i=a_i+{\beta }_1{T}_i+u_i$$

(1)

Here $Y_i$ denotes opening saving accounts, 1 if the respondent opens a saving account and 0 otherwise. $a_i$ _, the intercept, represents the constant value of the depending variable ($Y_i$) when all other independent variables are zero. $T_i$ denotes the treatment variable; attending a motivational workshop 1 if the respondent is in the treatment group and 0 if the respondent is in the control group. ${\beta }_1$, the coefficient will measure the average treatment effect. The error term will be captured by $u_i$_. Moreover, the following equation is used to measure the impact of motivational workshop on opening a saving account with covariates:

$$Y_i=a_i+{\beta }_1{T}_i+{\beta }_2{D}_i$$

(2)

Here $D_i$ denotes the pre-treatment covariates. The covariates include age, gender, education, total income, total expenditure, agricultural land ownership, family size, distance from financial institutions, and mobile phone and internet connection possessions.

We calculate the estimation by OLS regression since the direction of the effect of treatment on outcome is always the same for the logit and probit regression [59]. However, we also do probit and logit regression for robustness checking (See Appendix A: Table A1).

2.6. Summary statistics

Table 3 demonstrates summary statistics of the total sample, the treatment, and the control group based on respondents' demographic and household data at baseline.

The average age of the respondent is more than 33 years. From the demographic dividend’s perspective, the respondent belongs to the active age group. Their educational attainment is more than nine years on average, indicating that all the respondents have at least primary education in the Bangladesh context. In terms of income, the summary table shows the average income is 12,592 BDT. The average monthly household income is 26,163 BDT in rural areas which is much higher than the respondent’s monthly average income. Furthermore, the monthly average expenditure in rural areas is 26,842 BDT whereas the respondent’s average expenditure per month is 10,242 BDT [60]. The higher difference in income and expenditure indicates the respondents' economic status. Regarding gender, the treatment group has 76% male and 24% female. The control group consists of male 72% and female 28%. In terms of possession of a mobile, almost 97% in the control group and 99% in the treatment group have mobile phones. However, compared with the possession of mobile, the rate of internet users is much lower in both groups; 38% in the control group and 44% in the treatment group use internet. The respondents have diversified occupations, among them, farmers (39.89%) and housewives (26.47%) are predominating.

2.7. Balance check

We conducted a t-test to better understand the demographic characteristics between the treatment and the control groups; the result is presented in Table 4. Statistically, no significant differences are observed in the balance check after randomly assigning the samples to treatment and control groups. The average age difference between the treatment (34.12) and the control (33.34) is statistically non-significant. However, the higher age of the treatment group indicates that the control group is a little bit younger than their counterpart. There is no significant difference between educational attainment, family size, and agricultural land ownership between the treatment and the control group. Moreover, no observable and statistically significant differences are found in total income, total expenditure, distance from banks, micro-financial institutions, and mobile financial service points from the respondents' houses.

Although all the demographic and household variables are balanced, we observe an imbalance in food expenditure between the control and the treatment groups at a 1% level of significance. The imbalanced variable “food expenditure” is the segment of total expenditure. We observe total expenditure in both the groups are balanced, so we can claim that our randomization is almost successful.

3. Results

3.1. Account opening take up rate

Table 5 represents account opening frequency and percentage in different financial institutions (take-up rate) among the treatment group members. Total saving account opening (take-up rate) is 38.75% among the treatment groups. The highest take-up rate is observed through mobile financial service 18.33% which is 44 in number. The second highest rate is found for MFI accounts 26 in number (10.83%) and the bank account opening rate is 25 (10.42%).

3.2. Average Treatment Effect (ATE)

The mean differences of opening saving account in different financial institutions are presented in Table 6.

The ATE estimation with and without covariates are shown in Table 7 for checking robustness. The impact of a motivational workshop on opening savings account is shown in the second column. The third column shows ATE estimation with controlling variables. We use household and respondent’s demographic variables such as age, gender, education, total income and total expenditure, family size, agricultural land size, respondent's house distance from financial institutions such as banks, micro-financial institutions, mobile financial services, possession of mobile and an internet connection, and type of mobile used by respondents as controlling variables. The last column represents results with imbalanced variables (food expenditure). The treatment effect of the motivational workshop is persistent and significant in three cases. Besides, measuring the treatment effect on total account opening, we also calculated the treatment effect based on respondents' preference of financial institutions for opening accounts (rows 3,4,5). In this regard, we also observed a positive and significant impact of the motivational workshop on opening savings accounts. Furthermore, we also check robustness of our findings by doing probit and logit regression (see Appendix A, Table A1).

The treatment induced a 32.33 percent increase in opening savings account total. The increasing rate is consistent in terms of some pre-treatment controlling variables and with imbalanced variables which are 31.66 percent and 31.49 percent, respectively. The intervention improves bank account opening by 10.04 percent. It is also consistent in terms of covariates and with an imbalanced variable which is 9.9 percent and 10.23 percent respectively. It is at a 1% level significant in all conditions. We find similarities in opening savings account in micro-financial institutions after intervention. The third row of the table represents the result. It increases MFI accounts by 7.81 percent. However, the increasing rate is 8.35 percent (1% level significant) and 7.21 percent (5% level significant), respectively, with covariates and imbalanced variables. The fourth row represents the highest increase rate for mobile financial services among the respondents, which is 15.31 percent significant at the 1% level. Similarly, with covariates and imbalanced variable, the impact of a motivational workshop on opening savings accounts is 14.37 percent and 14.91 percent and both of them are at 1% level significant.

3.3. Conditional average treatment effect on opening savings accounts

Policymakers are more interested in adopting policies by targeting populations. Therefore, sub-sample analysis is necessary to identify the most appropriate groups where the treatment impact is most effective. For this, we do a sub-sample analysis to understand the treatment effect on a particular group. In this regard, we segregated the samples based on some observable characteristics from the summary statistics. Finally, we estimate the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) concerning age, educational attainment, gender, total income, total expenditure, occupation, family size, and agricultural land size.

Table 8 represents sub-sample analysis. We observe the intervention motivational workshop has a persistent and significant impact on opening savings accounts in different groups regardless of with and without control variables.

The CATE point is persistent and statistically significant whether we control pre-treatment variables or not. Regarding primary and secondary education, total expenditure (Expenditure$\ge$10292), other occupations, female, and family size category, we observe a slight increase in treatment impact results with covariates. However, the significance level is almost identical except "more than secondary education" group, which has 5% level of significance.

Table 9 represents the descriptive statistics of outcome variables for the whole sample, treatment, and control group. The impact of the motivational workshop on opening a savings account for the whole sample is 21.78 percent, institutionally 5.15 percent for bank accounts, 6.73 percent for micro-financial accounts, and 10.30 percent for mobile financial services accounts. The intervention effect has 13.55 times, 2.24 times, and 3.42 times higher magnitude for the total sample in terms of opening saving accounts in bank, MFI and MFS than the control group.

4. Discussion

The motivational workshop enhances opening account 32.33% percent among the unbanked VDP members. The intervention “motivational workshop” is statistically significant in terms of whether we control some pre-treatment variables or not. Moreover, our findings are statistically persistent and consistent even in terms of imbalanced variables. Account opening take-up rate differs in terms of choosing different financial institutions. The respondents were free to choose financial institutions for opening accounts. We observe the bank accounts opening rate of 10.04% followed by micro financial institution accounts at 7.81%. However, the highest take-up rate is observed for mobile financial services (15.31%) for various reasons such as easy account opening options, availability, less documentation process, 24/7 service even from a feature phone, zero account opening fee, and physical proximity of mobile financial services. Moreover, Khatun et al [61] explore various reasons for the popularity of mobile financial services in Bangladesh and find that cash in and out facilities, person-to-person pay (P2P), government-to-person pay (G2P), utility payment facilities, receiving government subsidies, and salary payment accelerate its popularity.

The findings of this study are consistent with [8,15,19,36] in terms of the positive direction of opening saving accounts, although their intervention is different from this study. Prina [15] found an 84% take-up rate by providing zero account opening, no maintenance fee, and physical proximity to the slum dwellers women house heads in Nepal. Hoy et al. [19] found a 70% take-up rate after offering zero opening and maintenance fees, a literacy workshop, and an easy application process for opening a bank account. In comparison with some previous studies, our treatment effect and take-up rate are a little bit low for several reasons. Firstly, we observed the impact of a one-hour-long motivational workshop on only opening savings accounts. Secondly, we rely only on a motivational workshop without any monetary subsidy and assistance for easing the documentation process since the impact of monetary subsidy, easy account opening process, and zero account opening and maintenance fee have already been experimented with in many developing countries. Finally, in comparison with the studies of Dupas et al, and Prina [9,15,62], we provided a short period for collecting the follow-up data on opening savings account just after 45 days of assigning intervention. Dupas et al. [9] conducted three round follow-ups after 6, 12, and 18 months in their study and found a take-up rate of 69% in Malawi, 54% in Uganda, and 17% in Chile after providing the intervention of zero account opening fee by offering vouchers to the respondents. Chin et al. [25] provided Matricula cards, one type of identity card, among the Mexican migrants in the USA as a treatment and observed that the intervention enhanced 38% more likely of opening bank accounts among the migrants. One possible interpretation of less treatment effect in our study may be the different setting, intervention, and context. Despite having a short intervention with existing conditions of opening saving accounts, we find that motivational workshops can enhance financial access among the unbanked people and bring them under the umbrella of financial inclusion. The findings have some policy implications as the intervention is cost-effective and replicable. The low-cost interventions are viable for policymakers in developing countries [20].

Our CATE analysis is consistent with those of [63,64,65] in terms of exploring the determinants of financial inclusion and account ownership. From our sub-sample analysis, it is observed that CATE estimation is higher than ATE estimation without covariates for several categories, such as 1.24 times higher for the secondary education group, 1.05 times higher for the income group (Income $\ge$ 12592), and the housewife category. Furthermore, CATE is 1.06 times higher for the younger age group (Age ≤ 33). The highest magnitude is observed at 1.15 times higher for a family with more than four members. Women, poor adults, less educated and people outside of the labor market are still far from financial access [8]. In this situation, the CATE analysis provides an insightful and significant impact on opening accounts through motivational workshops, especially for housewives, and younger age groups. Considering the higher magnitudes of CATE on opening savings accounts, policymakers can adopt the right policy from this finding.

Another interpretation of the significant increase in opening savings account is that the necessary documents for opening an account are similar to those of being a VDP member. Thus, the respondents have no shortage of documents for opening accounts. Moreover, the significant increase in opening accounts within a short time may be due to a good understanding of the content of motivational workshops. All the respondents are more than 18 years; thus, they are psychologically mature enough to understand and make positive decisions. The motivational workshop helps demonstrate a planned behavior among the treatment group because any expected outcome can be possible if the weightage of motivation is higher than other issues [66]. Motivation is the key element for behavior change as it initiates, and guides towards a goal-oriented change [67].

5. Conclusions

Despite having a good number of options for opening accounts in financial institutions, only 53% of adults in Bangladesh have financial accounts. Still, many people are financially excluded. As a result, the financially excluded have to adopt risky and inconvenient mechanisms for saving, sending, and receiving money. Based on our study, we have evidence that motivational workshop has a positive impact on opening savings accounts in financial institutions among unbanked people. Motivation triggers a changing positive mindset. The motivational workshop is successful since it has enhanced the take-up rate among the unbanked VDP members by 38.75 percent. The effectiveness of the intervention is much higher in opening saving accounts through mobile financial services by 15.31% followed by bank account at 10.04% and micro-financial institution accounts at 7.81%. Our CATE analysis is also statistically significant for different target groups.

The findings of this study have significant policy implications for adopting financial inclusion strategies for developing countries. Effective policy on financial access can move unbanked people from financial exclusion to financial inclusion. The motivational workshop has a positive impact on different subgroups, we can suggest policymakers adopt motivational workshops for the financially excluded people. This finding can be implacable for the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy of the Bangladesh government with the collaboration of the Ministry of Finance and Bangladesh Bank. NFIS-B has a target to bring the typically unbanked and marginalized people in terms of little income and educational attainment among tea laborers, physically impaired people, third gender, floating communities, slum dwellers, people in geographically remote areas such as forest, coastal, haor (vast marshy wetland), char land (sandy island beside the river) under financial inclusion [30]. Furthermore, our intervention is pertinent as it is easily replicable and less expensive than the studies provided money subsidy. Bangladesh government targets to ensure universal financial inclusion by 2026. NFIS-B proposed financial literacy and an annual program for achieving the goal. In line with the strategies of NFIS-B, the stakeholders may adopt our intervention “motivational workshop” for the unbanked population as an annual program. In addition, Bangladesh Ansar and VDP organization has much scope for adopting motivational workshops for the unbanked VDP members to open saving accounts. Ansar and VDP can incorporate motivational workshops in its village-based training program to achieve the goal of NFIS-B.

5.3. Limitations of the study

This study has some limitations. Spillover is one of them since we did our randomization at the individual level. Moreover, our study area is small and samples have almost homogenous occupations. Thus, there is higher probability of exchanging intervention message from the treatment group to the control group. As a result, our estimation is underestimated. Despite having underestimated results, our finding is still positive and statistically significant. We acknowledge that our intervention time is only one hour. As a result, there is much scope for measuring the long-term intervention effect in further research. Those limitations may pave the way for further research. Firstly, we also encourage further research to examine the long-term effect of motivational workshops among unbanked people. Secondly, the impact of motivational workshops in geographically challenged areas in Bangladesh needs to be explored. Finally, it is pertinent to observe the saving volume and active account usage tendency after opening accounts for better understanding the impact of motivational workshops.