Banks worldwide finance their assets using deposits (Hanson et al. 2015), which are a more stable funding source than short-term debt (Ivashina and Scharfstein 2010). But in developing countries, banks struggle to attract deposits: the fraction of people who are unbanked remains high, and people who do have bank accounts do not save much money in them (Demirguc-Kunt et al. 2018, Dupas et al. 2018). Increasing financial inclusion could be key to promoting economic development and growth, and reducing inequality (Presbitero et al. 2018).
Prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer lottery tickets for cash prizes (often instead of a fixed interest rate), could help banks attract new customers and increase deposits (Cole et al. 2007, Ke…
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