Below, we’ll discuss what financial inclusion is, how it works, and the different types of financial inclusion.

What Is Financial Inclusion?

Financial inclusion is a movement to ensure that individuals and businesses have access to affordable and effective financial services. Services range from basic transaction accounts like checking accounts and include additional services like credit and insurance. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman describes three essential aspects of modern financial inclusion:

How Does Financial Inclusion Work?

Simply put, financial inclusion works by helping individuals get affordable and convenient access to basic financial services. These individuals belong to groups who have been “financially excluded.” These groups typically live in low-income areas and/or developing countries. Over half of them are women. It may be easiest to understand financial inclusion by examining the problems that financial inclusion solves.

Lack of bank account: Without a bank account, or transaction account, individuals typically turn to “alternative financial services.” Those services may have higher fees than regulated institutions, and they typically don’t offer the same consumer protection (deposit insurance and protection from fraud and errors, for example). Living without a bank account requires time-consuming legwork to get funds and pay bills in person. Plus, accounts provide a safe place to save for the future. With technology, consumers can bank, pay, and get paid from anywhere at a very low cost. These accounts are seen as a “gateway” to other financial services, so this is emphasized in importance. Limited access to credit: If you have high credit scores, borrowing is easy. But some people have thin credit or bad credit, and some nations don’t use credit scores. Without easy access to loans, borrowers rely on informal lenders, which may charge high (or predatory) rates and fees. The informal economy: In many parts of the world, especially rural areas, cash rules. Businesses are unlikely to accept plastic or electronic payments, and storing cash (instead of depositing it in a bank account) is risky. Businesses find it hard to build assets for expansion, and they may have a limited choice of trading partners—suppliers who accept cash and customers who pay with cash.

A few groups are making a big push in delivering financial inclusion for as many individuals and businesses as possible. The G20 made a commitment in 2017 to advance the cause of financial inclusion worldwide. In 2018, The World Bank, working with International Finance Corporation, launched “UFA2020,” which is short for Universal Financial Access 2020. The initiative aimed at enabling 1 billion people to gain access to a transaction account. Another group, Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA), helps facilitate financial inclusion through its global microfinance program. They provide financial services to many population segments that have been excluded financially. Their impact has helped tens of millions since being founded in 1984.

Types of Financial Inclusion

Financial inclusion strategies can pave the way for low-income individuals and budding businesses to participate in the mainstream economy—on favorable terms. Technology plays a key role in everything from providing information to delivering the products people use, especially for populations that have traditionally been excluded from the banking system. For example, Kenya introduced M-PESA, a mobile payment system, in 2007. By 2016, 90% of the adult population was using the service. And customers don’t just send money to friends—they receive wages electronically, pay bills, and get loans. Other types of financial inclusion include a focus on the following areas: Financial literacy: To some degree, educating people about financial topics helps them use higher-quality products and make better decisions. Financial literacy helps people understand basic financial concepts (like compound interest), avoid mistakes, and develop a culture of savings. Service availability: Especially in rural areas, quality financial services are hard to find. But technology can help make services available, even with limited infrastructure. Mobile phones can help consumers and businesses transact business as long as cellular service (and possibly a battery backup) is available. Mobile wallets: Technology is a critical piece of large-scale financial inclusion. Mobile wallets are an alternative to cash, which is inefficient, risky to carry and store, and impossible to track. A basic mobile wallet can store value and make small peer-to-peer transfers. But more evolved systems enable a variety of bill payments and business-to-business payments. Distrust: For financial inclusion to be successful, individuals and businesses need confidence in providers. If legitimate consumer protection is not yet available, it needs to be developed—and explained to the public. Financial institutions (banks, lenders, and insurance providers) also need to be transparent about fees and avoid costly surprises for customers. Affordability: Banks are notorious for fees. For those with no extra money to spare, a monthly fee or overdraft charge can empty an account and lead to even more fees. Again, technology is the most likely solution, as new customers can join the service at little or no marginal cost to a mobile wallet provider. Prepaid debit cards are another alternative, and some provide FDIC insurance on funds in an account. Eligibility: Some people can’t open an account at a traditional bank or credit union even if they want to. Regulatory requirements like Know Your Customer (KYC) require banks to gather information that individuals might not have available. For example, opening an account at most U.S. banks requires a valid government-issued ID. Some propose increased financial inclusion by using tiered KYC rules. For example, you might be allowed to open a low-risk account (that limits how much you can save, spend, and transfer each month) with minimal documentation. But to work with higher dollar amounts, you’d need to satisfy KYC and anti-money-laundering (AML) rules. Access to credit: It’s hard to get a loan unless you have a high credit score, easily documentable income, or collateral to secure a loan. That leaves much of the world’s population unable to borrow. But financial inclusion initiatives often aim to create credit reporting agencies and expand their reach. What’s more, microlending provides access to funds for small businesses worldwide—at an affordable rate. Insurance: When disaster strikes, the financially excluded rarely have sufficient insurance in place. To change that, insurers are developing simplified offerings that are easy to work with. Once again, technology is critical to helping insurers serve low-income customers on a large scale. Customers need the ability to enroll on a mobile device and make small premium payments—while keeping these products and services profitable for insurers.

Key Takeaways

Financial inclusion is a movement to ensure that individuals and businesses have access to affordable and effective financial services.One main focus is getting individuals and businesses a bank account, or transaction account, because it is a gateway to other services.Groups such as The World Bank and FINCA are actively working to provide financial inclusion to as many as possible.