Financial Inclusion Insights

In much of the world, digital financial tools are a daily reality—used to process paychecks, pay for dinner, buy groceries, and more. But 1.4 billion adults in low- and middle-income countries still lack access to these tools.    This isn’t just an inconvenience for them; it's a barrier to economic growth and empowerment. According to a 2023 UN analysis, digital public infrastructure—including digital ID, payments, and data exchange—could accelerate GDP growth in these countries by 20 to 33 percent.    That’s where Mojaloop Foundation comes in: Their open-source software makes it possible for countries to build inclusive digital payment systems that allow anyone with a mobile phone to send and receive money securely, instantly, and affordably. This has the potential to drive economic inclusion—and open the doors to financial freedom—for billions.

In 2021, I became the first woman to head a unicorn in Israel, AKA Startup Nation. In many parts of the world, women are excluded from even the most basic financial services, so leading a fintech company is far from their reality. United Nations data estimates that 3.8 billion women live in the world, 50% of which are adults. According to the World Bank’s Global Findex Database, 1.4 billion of those 1.9 billion adult women, are unbanked. That’s 73.65%. Visit that statistic again. It represents a disturbing gender gap in financial access, with women being far less likely than men to have bank accounts or access formal financial services. This financial exclusion has personal impact. It diminishes women’s economic empowerment by restricting access to education and limiting their potential for personal growth and independence. It makes women more financially dependent, and therefore, more vulnerable. There's economic impact, too. Research by McKinsey highlights the economic loss due to financial exclusion of women, noting that closing the gender gap in labor force participation could add trillions to global GDP. Financial inclusion isn’t just a matter of equality – ensuring the same opportunities for all. It’s a matter of equity - ensuring women have the tools and access they need to fully participate in the global economy. That’s where technology enters the picture to level the field. The rise of mobile banking is a great example of innovation enhancing financial inclusion. According to a report by the International Finance Corporation, mobile money accounts are more popular among women in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, where access to traditional banking is limited. Various fintechs provide financial literacy resources, helping women understand financial products, budgeting, and saving strategies. Other solutions include AI-driven platforms that offer personalized recommendations and advice, empowering women to make informed financial decisions. Aside from personal apps and solutions, fintechs can facilitate community-based lending and saving initiatives, allowing women to support each other through group savings or microfinance schemes, fostering a sense of solidarity and shared purpose. This International Women’s Day’s theme is "accelerate action". In my mind, nothing accelerates action like innovation. As we mark International Women's Day, let’s advocate and innovate to enhance financial inclusion for women worldwide. #IWD2025 #financialInclusion Papaya Global

If your budget isn’t changing gender inequality, it might be reinforcing it. Most policies mention gender, but few actually integrate it into planning and budgeting. This Toolkit for Gender Responsive Budgeting is designed to support institutions to move beyond policy statements and embed gender equality into planning and budgeting processes. Here’s why it’s worth a read: 🔎 It clarifies core gender concepts It breaks down the difference between sex and gender, explains gender norms and stereotypes, and unpacks terms like gender equality, equity, justice and intersectionality. Clear language strengthens policy. 🏛 It distinguishes institutional and programmatic mainstreaming It shows how gender must be integrated internally within systems, leadership, HR and accountability, and externally within policies, programmes and service delivery. 🧭 It provides a structured training pathway From commitment and terminology to sector priorities, planning and budgeting. The curriculum logic is clear and progressive. 📊 It links planning directly to budgeting It explains Gender Responsive Budgeting as a mainstreaming tool, including expenditure tagging, gender markers, tracking and reporting. 🛠 It includes practical tools Gender analysis approaches Guiding questions for sector planning The Gender Integration Continuum Guidance on data and evidence for informed decision making One important reminder from the toolkit: gender mainstreaming is not an add-on, but core business. More than half of any department’s constituency is women and girls. Ignoring gender means misallocating public resources. This toolkit helps answer critical questions: • Where are the women and girls in our sector? • Who is excluded and why? • How does our budget reflect our equality commitments? • Are we transforming power dynamics or simply accommodating them? Found it useful? Save it and share with your network. #GenderMainstreaming #GenderResponsiveBudgeting #PublicFinance #GenderEquality

India just did something that should have taken 47 years in 9 years. 561.6 million people gained bank accounts through Jan Dhan Yojana since 2014. That’s nearly 1.5 times the entire US population brought into the financial mainstream. Most countries take half a century to do this. Anil Padmanabhan something that stopped me cold. Here’s what makes this unprecedented: ↳ Stats that demand attention: • Gender gap in account ownership: 17% → 6% in just 6 years • Education divide collapsed from 29% → 10%• Rich-poor banking gap narrowed from 14% → 5% • ₹38.49 trillion transferred directly to citizens via JAM trinity • 116 million retail investors on NSE, 72% from tier-II/III towns ↳ Three insights reshaping financial inclusion: 1/ From access to empowerment The real challenge isn’t opening accounts—it’s transforming savers into investors. 561 million people now have economic identity, but only 4.2% are truly financially literate. Infrastructure creates leapfrogging 2/ JAM trinity (Jan Dhan + Aadhaar + Mobile) became economic GPS. It saved ₹3 trillion by eliminating middlemen while restoring trust in government welfare. 3/ Inclusion without literacy creates vulnerability India’s retail investing boom is exciting but dangerous. Millions entering markets without capacity to navigate volatility. Financial inclusion 2.0 must prioritize education. ↳ my take after 20 years in this industry What India achieved defies every textbook on financial inclusion. As Anil notes, countries typically need per capita income to rise from $5,000 to $20,000 over 47 years to reach this scale. India did it with incomes rising only from $1,500 to $2,700. The secret wasn’t just tech—it was reimagining the social contract. JAM how 500+ million people relate to the formal economy. But here’s the catch: access without financial literacy is like giving someone car keys without driving lessons. But the story everyone’s celebrating has a massive blind spot. That’s why my co-authors Ayush Tripathi and Soham Jagtap and I wrote “Ushering into the New Era of Financial Inclusion: Enabling Women and Women-Led Organisations.” last year ↳ What our research revealed: • Women make up only 32.8% of India’s workforce vs 47% globally • Despite being nearly half the population, women contribute just 17% to GDP compared to 37% worldwide •Women receive credit equal to just 27% of their deposits, while men get 52% • Only 10% of women are borrowers compared to 15% of men The infrastructure is built. Now comes the harder part—ensuring these accounts become instruments of wealth creation, not just welfare delivery; the women become employment drivers and borrowers not just subsidy recipients. Which other emerging markets do you see balancing rapid financial inclusion with financial literacy? What lessons can others learn from India? (link to the articles in the comments)

❓ Can societal attitudes about sexism influence how firms are valued and how investors behave? 📚 I want to share a fascinating study by my colleague Henri Servaes and his co-authors Karl Lins, Lukas Roth, and Ane Tamayo: "Sexism, Culture, and Firm Value: Evidence from the Harvey Weinstein Scandal and the #MeToo Movement." The study investigates whether societal attitudes about sexism can influence firm valuation and investor behavior. By examining the period around the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the rise of the #MeToo movement, the authors provide compelling evidence of how shifts in social norms impact corporate strategies and market outcomes. Key Findings: 💼 Firms with women in senior leadership—defined as having one or more women among the five highest-paid executives—earned excess returns of 1.3% compared to those without female leaders during the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the rise of the #MeToo movement. 📈 This return differential was driven by changes in investor preferences toward firms perceived as embodying a nonsexist culture. 🌍 Societal shocks, like the Weinstein scandal, reshaped investor sentiment and firm valuation. 🏦 Institutional investors, especially those with less focus on ESG factors prior to the scandal, significantly increased their holdings in firms with female executives after these events. 💡 This indicates that cultural shifts were reflected not only in societal discourse but also in capital allocation decisions. 👥 Firms without female executives responded by increasing gender diversity. 🔄 This change highlights how shifts in investor preferences can lead to tangible changes in corporate behavior. My advice based on this study: 📊 Monitor Investor Sentiment: Institutional investors adapt their preferences in response to cultural shifts. Professionals should keep an eye on changing investor behaviors as they can be a leading indicator of broader societal changes. Engaging with investors to communicate how your corporate culture aligns with these changes can provide a strategic advantage. 🌱 Invest in Long-Term Cultural Shifts: Cultural attitudes toward sexism have significant financial repercussions. Companies that commit to fostering inclusive environments can benefit from improved market perceptions and increased investor trust. Inclusivity should be treated as a core, sustained business practice rather than a reactive measure. 🤝 Move Beyond Diversity Metrics: Improving gender diversity metrics is important, but fostering a genuinely nonsexist corporate culture is where real value lies. Companies should prioritize creating an authentic culture where leadership opportunities are accessible to all. Investors are increasingly capable of discerning authenticity in corporate commitments, which can translate into long-term financial benefits. Full paper: https://lnkd.in/e-UvhHst #ESG #CorporateGovernance #GenderEquality #MeToo #SustainableInvesting

🔴 In Africa, Uber lost to the boda driver with a phone number you can actually call. That's not a failure of technology—it's a masterclass in what truly drives financial inclusion. In a recent FS i-Hub session with Hugo Pacheco - The Barefoot Economist and Rob Sanford, CEO of SafeBoda (mobility fintech super app), revealed something profound: in markets where 80% of workers are informal and trust is scarce, embedded finance isn't about APIs—it's about understanding people. The conversation cut through the hype: 📍 Platforms aren't just apps—they're economic infrastructure 📍 Financial wellness comes before financial growth 📍 Trust beats speed in low-trust environments ‣ Rob's insight hit home: "Traditional banks can't underwrite a boda driver—but we can, because we know their work, income patterns, and ambitions." SafeBoda doesn't just move people. It embeds insurance, vehicle loans, land credit, and same-day payouts directly into daily work. Drivers repay loans through rides, build credit histories through activity, and move from instability to asset ownership. This is what financial inclusion looks like when it's designed from the ground up—not imported from the top down. Key insights from the session: • Local platforms win because they build trust through human support, not just technology • Embedded finance works when it's lived daily, not layered on afterward  • Africa needs 12 million new jobs yearly—platforms are filling the gap that formal systems can't • Smart regulation should enable platform innovation, not strangle it Hugo brings us conversations that challenge conventional wisdom and spotlight what's actually working in African fintech—not what sounds good in boardrooms. Because the future of work and finance in Africa won't be written by those chasing global playbooks. It will be built by those who understand local realities. 👇 Read the full insights from the session  🎥 Watch the replay (link included in the article) What's your take? Can global platforms ever truly compete with locally-rooted solutions in emerging markets? #Fintech #Africa #superapp #FSiHub

When climate finance 💰 overlooks women, resilience becomes an unfinished equation. Because the real question isn’t how much money is available. It’s who gets to use it, and for what ⁉️ Climate resilience is built on more than field-level adaptation. It’s about how institutions design, deliver, and govern access to finance. That was a key message in the FAO report “Empowering Women in Egypt’s Livestock and Dairy Subsectors: A Gender-Transformative Approach to Climate Resilience and Economic Inclusion.” One of the strongest recommendations? 👉 Expand tailored financial services and credit for women in agriculture. Here’s why that matters ⤵️ Climate finance is often imagined in billions 🤑 global pledges, large-scale projects, and infrastructure funds. But resilience often starts with smaller, local decisions: 👉 a woman farmer 👩🌾 taking a loan to buy solar-powered cooling, 👉 a cooperative accessing microcredit to reduce waste, 👉 a dairy producer investing in drought-resistant feed. Yet only 2% of rural women in Egypt have access to agricultural credit. That’s not a funding gap. It’s a systems gap. When finance mechanisms overlook women’s realities, they weaken the very resilience they aim to build. And this isn’t unique to Egypt. As the Gender and Climate Finance report shows, global funds still struggle to translate gender commitments into measurable results with limited data, scarce dedicated funding for women-led initiatives, and uneven accountability for outcomes. Working across government, development, and academia, I see this gap often the space between frameworks and lived experience. Designing finance that actually reaches women, and trusts them as economic actors, is where real transformation begins. Because climate finance that includes women isn’t just fairer. It’s more effective. It builds stronger markets, communities, and systems of resilience. 💡 The strength of any climate system depends on who it’s built to serve. (The timeline below, from the Gender and Climate Finance report, tracks how far international climate funds have come in integrating gender and how far there’s still to go.) #climatefinance #womenempoerment #womeninagriculture #financialinclusion #sustainability #genderequality #developmentfinance #climateaction ODI Global Climate Vision Consulting

20 years ago, analysts predicted that by 2025, women would own the majority of the UK’s wealth. The opposite has happened. Today, women’s share of UK personal wealth has fallen to 45% (per ONS data) - with the average woman holding £78,000 less than the average man. Why? The barriers are depressingly familiar: → A 13% gender pay gap (even wider for mothers). → A pension gap of 48% - with men aged 60-69 holding £150k more on average than women of the same age. → Career breaks, caring responsibilities, and part-time work exclude many women from auto-enrolment into pensions. → Lower levels of investment confidence - 52% of women have never held an investment outside their workplace pension. The story is not about women working less hard or performing less well. Girls still outperform boys at GCSEs. Women are founding businesses in record numbers. But our systems - childcare, pensions, investment, taxation… are still stacked against them. That’s why I’m incredibly proud of the work I do with initiatives like the Invest in Women Taskforce Without systemic change, women will continue to be wealth underachievers relative to their talent, contribution, and potential. We’ve known the problem for decades. And the numbers tell us: optimism alone won’t close the gap, action will.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 (𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡) 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨, 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 (𝐌𝐒𝐌𝐄𝐬) 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚. ✅ MSMEs are integral to India's economy, contributing 29% to GDP, 44% to exports, and employing over 123 million people. Despite their critical role, these enterprises historically faced barriers in accessing 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭,𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐥𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 . The industry has identified a staggering credit gap of Rs 25 trillion, necessitating innovative solutions to fuel growth. 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐆𝐚𝐩: ✅Traditional banks have often been hesitant to extend credit to MSMEs due to perceived risks and lack of credit history. ✅Fintech disruptors are transforming this sector by leveraging alternative data sources such as digital transactions and GST filings to assess creditworthiness. This data-driven approach is expanding the credit market, enabling MSMEs to secure vital funding. By 2026, digital lending is expected to soar to Rs 47.4 lakh crore, highlighting fintech's pivotal role in democratizing access to finance. Digital Payments Revolution ✅The rise of digital payments, facilitated by platforms like UPI, has streamlined financial transactions for MSMEs. With over 10 billion transactions processed monthly via UPI, these technologies are enhancing operational efficiency and financial inclusion. This shift towards digital modes is crucial, with 72% of MSME payments now conducted digitally, signaling a transformative shift from cash-based transactions. 📌 Future Outlook: Integrating AI and DeFi Looking ahead, the convergence of AI and machine learning in fintech promises enhanced credit scoring models and personalized financial services. Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms are also poised to democratize access to financial services, reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries. ✅ Fintech has revolutionized access to financial services for MSMEs, formerly out of reach. Embracing modern fintech platforms enables small businesses to streamline operations, manage cash flow efficiently, and gain control over their finances. These solutions provide rapid access to capital, empowering MSMEs to expand, explore new opportunities, and access broader markets. Moreover, fintech addresses the long-standing issue of financial inclusion among MSMEs, offering tailored financial services that traditional banking often fails to provide. ✅ Active fintech providers supporting MSMEs include: Indifi Technologies, Capital Float, Clix Capital, Lendingkart, NeoGrowth, SME Corner, Vayana Network, CoinTribe #msme #fintech #credit #insurance #projectfinance #indianeconomy

Finally got time to download and read the latest Global Findex Report. And here is the good news: "Worldwide, 79% of adults have an account at a bank or similar financial institution, with a mobile money provider, or both, up from 74% in 2021." 💥 "86% of adults own a mobile phone." Affordable mobile connectivity plays a major role in giving more people access to financial services, including those who were previously too difficult or expensive to reach. And it goes beyond access: ability to save and transact digitally brings liquidity, access to formal credit options, and more economic opportunities to individuals and small businesses. 💥 "As of 2024, 73% of women in low- and middle-income economies had accounts, up from just 50% in 2014 and 66% in 2021."   The narrowing gender gap in mobile phone ownership helps to increase account ownership by women, though income level also plays a big role. Increased digitization comes with risks, however. And more needs to be done to protect the most vulnerable communities, and enable financial resilience for more people. As I often stress, there is no true financial inclusion without digital inclusion. As someone who have spent two decades in telecom before starting my fintech career, I am excited about the progress. The journey continues ... ➡️ Full report here: https://lnkd.in/eutW9Tmp #Fintech #FinancialServices #Payments #Innovation #FinancialInclusion