A Randomised Controlled Trial on the Impact of Free Reading Glasses to Support Use of Smartphone Banking in Bangladesh Among Government Old Age Allowance and Widow Allowance Beneficiaries

Background and Rationale: The proliferation of mobile banking systems across developing countries has provided previously un-banked populations with a convenient method to manage their finances digitally. The Government of Bangladesh launched the Old Age Allowance (OAA) and Widow Allowance (WA) programmes in 1998 to provide a financial safety net to its poor and vulnerable population - elderly under OAA and vulnerable women under WA. More than half of Bangladesh adults lack access to a formal bank account, with most of the un-banked population belonging to the poorest 40% of households. Mobile money, through applications such as bKash, has become the "innovation" to improve the financial inclusion scenario in Bangladesh, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. The take-up of mobile money is often limited by a lack of technical awareness and trust concerns among the elderly. Lee at al. (2021) have addressed these concerns through an intervention consisting of initial training and subsequent minor assistance in using the bKash mobile banking application, which they randomised over a sample of poor households in rural Bangladesh. They found an increase of 7.5% in rural consumption, a reduction in extreme poverty and a 26% increase in urban to rural remittances among the sample participants using bKash a year after the intervention. Across Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), experimental studies encouraging adoption of mobile money applications have been shown to improve consumption smoothing, savings and access to credit. There is evidence to support the theory that a training module introducing the elderly to mobile banking will help bridge strong information and trust gaps, and encourage greater financial independence. As traditional joint family structures weaken in South Asian societies, greater economic independence among older populations has the potential to improve their functional independence, level of healthcare access, and mental well-being. Evidence suggests that there is a substantial burden of uncorrected presbyopia in Bangladesh. Uncorrected vision problems have been found to negatively affect visual function, which includes smart phone and mobile phone usage among the elderly in multiple LMIC contexts. It has also been found to affect productivity among tea plantation workers performing visually demanding tasks in Assam, India. This can lead to lower engagement with mobile banking platforms, which in turn can limit elderly people's access to their finances. Conversely, correction of presbyopia is associated with significant improvements in work productivity and other economically important outcomes.

The proposed THRIFT trial is the first randomised trial to examine two important determinants of mobile banking among an elderly and financially vulnerable population in a developing country context: lack of awareness about the use of mobile banking, and uncorrected age-related decline in near vision, presbyopia.

The aim of the proposed RCT trial is to assess the impact of presbyopia correction and basic digital financial training (combined complementary intervention) on greater adoption and use of digital financial services (primary outcome) and other welfare impacts (secondary outcomes) for safety-net beneficiaries in an LMIC.

JPGSPH will gather the beneficiary list of the OAA and WA from the Department of Social Service, Government of Bangladesh.

Consent for Social screening and vision screening is obtained by Community Health workers (CHW) of MOMODa Foundation (MF) and consented participants are assigned the Unique participant Identifier (ID).