Officials at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, have announced plans to funnel millions over the next few years into efforts meant to encourage personal savings in developing countries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The plan, which represents the foundation’s first focused grant-making program in the area of financial services, is part of a larger intention to improve poor countries’ basic infrastructure.

“We’re going to focus very heavily on using our resources and our voice to put savings back on the world agenda,” said Bob Christen, director of financial services for the poor at the Gates Foundation.

Often, poor people around the world save their wealth in the form of physical assets, such as livestock, coffee, or jewelry. But evidence is growing that they seek more secure means of accumulating savings. Six banks — in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Benin, Uganda, and Colombia — that serve largely poor clients found that customers were six times more likely to request savings accounts than loans, reports a 2006 study by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, a think tank sponsored by the World Bank that advised the Gates Foundation on its new financial-services program.

But collecting savings deposits from the poor in developing countries is rife with challenges, including strict banking regulations and a shortage of bank branches in rural areas. The new program could mean that the Gates Foundation will forge ties with telecommunications operators, banks, and retailers, which philanthropists have rarely worked with in partnership. Says Mr. Christen: “It’s a new world for foundations in general.”

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