Financial Inclusion

Access to affordable financial services — such as payments, credit, savings products, and insurance — is critical for poverty reduction and economic growth.  In Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs), 80 percent of the adults that saved could more easily cope with emergencies. Wide-spread adoption of digital payments by individuals and larger businesses could motivate formalization of smaller businesses.

Global account ownership increased from 51 percent in 2011 to 76 percent in 2021. Despite such encouraging progress, more than a billion people around the world remain financially excluded. 65 percent of adults in the world’s low-income economies lack access to even the most basic transaction account. Half of adults in EMDEs cannot financially cope with an emergency. The gender gap, while narrowing, remains substantial in developing economies, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The large unmet need for credit from Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in developing economies is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. The average cost of sending money home is still high at around 6 percent. Low financial and digital literacy are also barriers.

Digital financial services (DFS), enabled by fintech, are lowering costs, increasing speed, security, and transparency of transactions, enabling access for underserved sections. DFS addresses both supply side and demand side barriers. As of early 2020, there were over 850 million registered mobile money accounts across 90 countries, with $1.3 billion transacted per day. DFS lowers the cost of remittances and improves efficiency and integrity of government payments. Officially recorded remittance flows to EMDEs in 2022 were estimated to be $630 billion.

While the benefits of financial services are well documented, DFS introduce risks to users and to the broader financial system, including predatory lending, data privacy concerns, unequal access to technology, and cyber-security and operational risks. Policy makers will need to ensure their policy frameworks remain “fit for purpose.”

The World Bank Group is assisting EMDEs in responsibly harnessing DFS — working on DFS in over 50 countries through lending and advisory, investing in data sources, fostering risk capital, and IFC investments to accelerate adoption.

The World Bank advances financial inclusion through its financial sector expertise, country engagement and dialogue, financing and risk-sharing instruments, unique datasets and research capacity, and influence with standard-setting bodies and the G20. We focus on:

• Supporting countries in navigating the changing financial-services landscape by helping adapt regulation, supervision, and oversight frameworks so they remain effective amidst the fintech-driven transformation. We advise policymakers to manage risks, while fostering beneficial innovation and competition.
• Helping modernize and open financial infrastructures — enabling banks, non-banks, and fintech providers to offer digital financial services efficiently and safely.
• Providing research, data, and policy guidance based on global fintech activity data, market surveys, and cross-country analyses, to inform inclusive financial-sector strategies and evidence-based policymaking.
• Collaborating with governments, regulators, and private-sector actors to extend access to digital financial services — payments, savings, credit, insurance, and other services — particularly for underserved populations, micro-enterprises, and small businesses.
• Creating markets, structures and channels for investments and de-risking mechanisms to facilitate mobilization of private capital to drive growth in financial inclusion.

We have developed an integrated approach under the Financial Inclusion and Infrastructure program focused on supporting financial authorities and stakeholders to improve conditions and implement enablers for financial inclusion of individuals and Micro, Medium and Small Sized Enterprises (MSMEs).

The program comprises the following key areas of work:

• Financial inclusion strategy, policies and regulations
• Financial consumer protection and market conduct regulation and supervision
• MSME access to finance policies, infrastructure and products
• Payment systems
• Credit information systems
• Insolvency and debt resolution

Financial Inclusion is also embedded across other World Bank initiatives and financing operations.In addition to advisory services, analytics and global engagement, the program also provides active support to other World Bank initiatives helping to integrate financial inclusion into key sectors, such as social protection, agriculture, and climate finance.

Lao PDR

In Southeast Asia, natural disasters regularly disrupt lives, jobs, and economic activity. Between 2015 and 2020, disasters cost ASEAN countries over $11 billion. In May 2025, the Lao PDR became one of the first countries to adopt a sovereign disaster risk insurance policy with a people-affected impact trigger. This builds on Laos’ first disaster risk insurance purchase in 2021, a three-year hybrid product covering floods. The 2025 policy better aligns payouts with government expectations. With a two-year $3.6 million premium, it provides up to $16 million in coverage for floods, cyclones, earthquakes, and landslides, using an innovative impact-based trigger tied to government-reported data. Financed by grants from the Global Shield Financing Facility and the Risk Finance Umbrella MDTF, the policy delivered a $2 million payout within six business days after disasters affected over 300,000 people.

Kenya

The Kenya Jobs and Economic Transformation Project (KJET) started in December 2023 with an aim to benefit more than 45,000 Kenyans through new or improved job prospects. One of the components of this project is for scaling up green SME financing, which will mobilize green private capital to support SMEs’ adoption of green technologies. This will be through financing Kenya Development Corporation (KDC) via capitalization support to invest in a dedicated newly established Green Investment Fund (GIF) as a limited partner, to provide an initial risk-adjusted, long-term, patient capital, including equity and mezzanine financing. The fund will mobilize private capital in addition to the World Bank Group funding.

Afghanistan

World Bank Group has been supporting the microfinance sector in Afghanistan, focusing on women's financial inclusion. The project aims to revitalize microfinance providers in Afghanistan through recapitalization support and alongside an offering of technical assistance to diversify products and operational efficiency. Additional focus is on creating a pipeline of bankable micro and small enterprises, including women-led businesses, through business development services and a credit viability fund, to connect them to the regulated financial system.

• Global Shield Financing Facility
• Risk Finance Umbrella Multi Donor Trust Fund