Podcast: The History of Financial Inclusion

According to the World Bank, financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.

In this podcast, we explore the current status of financial inclusion, why it is a global economic objective and some of the reasons why people remain excluded.

Three key takeaways:

1. Globally, there are 1.7 billion unbanked adults, 56% of whom, about 980 million, are women according to the most recent Global Findex data. In developing economies, women are 20% less likely than men to have an account at a formal financial institution and 17% less likely to have borrowed formally in the past year
2. Financial inclusion is a means to tackle poverty and inequality and is vital for inclusive economic growth. It underpins and contributes to many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
3. Challenges to addressing the unbanked are that they are high risk, as they have no history of credit, can lack identity documents and have an informal and fluctuating income. But M-PESA in Kenya is an example that shows it is possible to profitably provide services to this segment.