SurveyMETER in collaboration with the Center for Global Development (CGD), Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and Mercy Corps Indonesia conducted a study entitled the "Village Community Financial Access Survey (SKMD) 2016". It was conducted in 400 villages in 3 districts of East Java: Tuban, Bojonegoro, and Ngawi. The field data collection commenced on November 10, 2016, and was accomplished in March 2017.

It was conducted to encourage the government in banking service policy after the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (SNKI) was launched in June 2012. One of the SNKI programs is branchless banking to facilitate and bring banking services closer to the un-bankable. Achieving financial inclusion requires good knowledge and understanding from the public on financial management related to banking services.

A derivative of this branchless banking program is the Mobile Financial Services for Female Entrepreneurs Program (MFS). Namely a program to support financial inclusion policies through financial education in order to increase the ability to manage finances for women entrepreneurs. This program will also encourage the emergence of officeless bank service agents as well as provide education to them.

Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify a cost-effective and sustainable approach to implementing branchless banking and business training that leads to increased savings and investment by women entrepreneurs with the ultimate goal of increasing income.

It applies a quantitative approach in which the questionnaire is the main instrument. The data collection method was face-to-face interviews with the main respondents using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). All books and questions are already installed in the CAPI program, so the interview results can be directly recorded to the laptop. The total target sample is 4,800 households consisting of 1,500 in Tuban, 2,100 of Bojonegoro, and 1,200 of Ngawi.

Prior to collecting field data, the survey process went through several stages including pre and pilot surveys in Bojonegoro, while the training for prospective field assistants was held at the Grand Wahid Hotel, Salatiga from October 29 to November 5, 2016. (JF)