Kate McKee

Kate McKee formerly led CGAP’s initiative on responsible digital finance, which seeks to ensure transparency and safety for customers through forward-thinking industry standards and proportional regulation. She also led policy and advisory work on consumer protection, as well as Graduating the Poor into Sustainable Livelihoods initiative, which promotes scaling up of a holistic model that has achieved rigorously-documented gains in income, consumption, assets, and other aspects of well-being for participating extreme poor households in multiple countries around the world.

Following assignments with the Ford Foundation in West Africa and New York, Kate worked for 12 years in delivery of innovative financial services in the United States, including leading the team that started up a new federal initiative to finance Community Development Financial Institutions. She then headed up the Microenterprise Development office at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Kate is a development economist (MPIA Princeton University). 

By Kate McKee

Blog

Interest Rates: What Are the Lessons from Russia on "How Much Is Too Much?"

The situation in Russia and other countries is now leading us to want to revisit each of these factors, “deconstructing” the concept of “sustainable” interest rates and review factors, to see if this process sheds some light on whether any given interest rate can be considered responsible.
Research

Voting the Double Bottom Line

This Focus Note addresses the challenges faced by socially oriented equity investors who take formal roles in the governance of microfinance service providers and funds.
Research

The Role of Funders in Responsible Finance

This Brief addresses the recent movement toward responsible finance, which has shaped the industry's belief that financial service providers have a responsibility to deliver financial services in a way that is transparent, fair, safe, and likely to generate benefits for poor clients.
Research

Responsible Finance: Putting Principles to Work

This paper defines what we mean by responsible finance, both as an end-state vision and in terms of a pragmatic focus on client protection and social performance management.
Blog

Responsible Finance: The “New Normal”?

We should expect the great majority of microfinance providers, funders and others that are double bottom line institutions to be able to measure the extent to which they’re benefiting their clients and to use this information to improve services.