On the outskirts of sprawling Delhi, 34-year-old Maya opens her kirana, a small grocery store, for the day. Sleeves of shampoo packets and dry snacks line the walls around the counter where Maya serves up to 80 customers on a good day. She accepts payments in cash as well as digital payments on her smartphone, thanks to India’s successful <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zennonkapron/2023/04/10/is-indias-upi-real-time-payments-system-ready-to-go-global/?sh=298e95e94d14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system</a>. However, while Maya’s name is registered as the business and bank account owner, she does not know much about the bank account or the business finances beyond her handwritten ledger book. Instead, her husband manages the banking relationship, and she must ask him for more cash or information about the account balance.
<blockquote>Many registered businesses are owned and managed by women only on paper; their lived realities are much different.</blockquote>
According to the Indian Ministry of Micro, Small &amp; Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), <a href="https://msme.gov.in/msme-annual-report-2022-23" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">women only own 20 percent of Indian MSMEs</a>. While this is already a small figure, ​​​​<a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/fight-gender-inequality-prioritizing-womens-customer-experience-in-product-design-and-complaint-resolution-processes">interviews conducted in March 2023</a> with 38 women business owners in India suggest that this number may be even lower. Many registered businesses are owned and managed by women only on paper; their lived realities are much different.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-46289" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/Nina-Liew-blog-graphic.png" alt="" width="1009" height="235" />
<h1>Challenging Existing Norms</h1>
Providing financial services to women in low- and middle-income countries <a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/designing-financial-services-and-social-protection-programs-enhance-womens-economic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">does not necessarily result in economic empowerment</a> if women do not or cannot make the decisions about their finances. Of the Indian women micro- and small-business (MSE) owners interviewed, over one-third relied on a man — typically a husband or brother — to manage or assist in their use of financial services, even if the woman was the registered owner of the business and bank account. When asked why, women said it was because of personal preference, a lack of confidence in operating the account, or that it was the man’s choice. This was true of interviewees with a master’s degree as well as those with lower levels of formal education, illustrating the pervasiveness of gender norms across education levels.

Managing the business’ day-to-day finances extends to resolving issues with a bank or fintech. Women who rely on their husbands or brothers to operate their bank accounts will often wait for them to contact the agent -- who is usually a man -- to resolve any complaints. This process is time-consuming and causes friction in women’s daily business activities. Consequently, these women may turn away customers if they do not have enough cash or lack information on accessing financial services for business improvement or growth.

For women in India to fully realize their economic contribution to the Indian economy, we must challenge and change existing norms. The current lack of equality represents a missed opportunity as bona fide access to formal financial services enables women to build their assets and wealth, improving their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families.
<h1>Benefits for Women and Businesses</h1>
The burgeoning fintech sector has the pivotal opportunity to create better outcomes for women. India’s fintech sector is one of the fastest growing in the world, with approximately <a href="https://www.bain.com/insights/india-fintech-report-2022-sailing-through-turbulent-tides/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">USD $35 billion invested</a>, more than doubling India’s share of global fintech funding since 2016. However, many fintechs are “gender-neutral” and do not design intentionally for diverse genders, reinforcing discriminatory gender norms. For example, because women tend to have <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/an-equitable-rebuilding-learnings-from-women-owned-msmes">lower rates of digital transactions or formal financial assets</a>, it can be more challenging for them to meet loan eligibility requirements. When fintechs have a gender-neutral approach, the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2022-insights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gender gap is 28 percent higher</a> than the gap for bank accounts or smartphone ownership.
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">Many fintechs are “gender-neutral” and do not design intentionally for diverse genders, reinforcing discriminatory gender norms.</blockquote>
Advancing gender-intelligent changes and developing strategies to overcome women’s specific constraints can help fintechs tap into the <a href="https://financialallianceforwomen.org/download/how-fintechs-can-profit-from-the-multi-trillion-dollar-female-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$216 trillion global market</a> controlled by women. Research by the Financial Alliance for Women shows that fintechs could see a ​​​​<a href="https://financialallianceforwomen.org/download/how-fintechs-can-capture-the-female-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">70 percent increase in revenues</a> by converting new women customers at the same rate as men. While building economic power for women on its own is a compelling reason to inspire change, this financial incentive is an additional driving force for investor-backed and profit-driven fintechs to prioritize gender-inclusive design and compete in an increasingly crowded market.
<h1>Increasing Diversity Is a Crucial Driver of Change</h1>
One fundamental way that fintechs can adapt their strategies to benefit women is by increasing their organizational diversity. From its interviews with the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Finance 50</a> fintech winners, CFI found that women-led fintechs were <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2021-insights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more likely</a> to explicitly target and serve more women customers and report gender segmentation data, which is necessary for gender-intelligent decision making. This staff diversity should extend to customer-facing roles, such as the agents and distributors interacting with women customers, and women business correspondents are critical in <a href="https://www.adb.org/publications/digital-doorstep-banking-female-banking-agents-lead-digital-financial-inclusion-through-the-pandemic-and-beyond" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">expanding financial inclusion</a>. Interfacing with women staff makes it easier for women business owners to manage financial matters as women place a higher value on building personal relationships with agents and building trust over time.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">Women-led fintechs were more likely to explicitly target and serve more women customers and report gender segmentation data.</blockquote>
Investors and regulators can also incentivize and require fintechs to make these changes. For example, through <a href="https://www.womensworldbanking.org/what-we-do/gender-lens-investing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gender lens investing</a>, Women’s World Banking works toward higher social and financial returns. Their in-depth approach uses fintech data to develop customized, strategic Gender Action Plans, and their first fund saw an <a href="https://www.womensworldbanking.org/what-we-do/gender-lens-investing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">83 percent increase in women reached</a> by portfolio companies. 

Although fintechs alone cannot bring about an overnight transformation in societal and gender norms, taking these steps represents a real and immediate opportunity to initiate change for the economic empowerment of women in India and beyond.



<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilla-nestor-640b70">Camilla Nestor</a>, Advisory Council Member of CFI and CEO of MCE Capital, teaches a financial inclusion course at Columbia’s <a href="https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/">School of International and Public Affairs</a> (SIPA). Each year, the course features a writing competition that gives students an opportunity to write a blog post on a topic of their choice related to inclusive finance. This piece was written by the winner of the 2023 writing competition, Nina Liew.

This work is inspired by a graduate research project conducted by students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in consultation with CFI and with support from <a href="https://ifmrlead.org/">LEAD at Krea University</a>. Nina and the team of graduate students focused on digital financial inclusion and consumer protection for women MSE owners in India. They interviewed 38 women MSE owners, bank and fintech agents, and fintech executives in India in March 2023. 

Note: The story in this post was created as an amalgamation of interviewees.

Power in Practice – or Only on Paper? Addressing the Financial Gaps Affecting Women Business Owners in India

This blog post was generated from a research project conducted by a team of graduate students from Columbia University’s <a href="https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">School of International and Public Affairs</a>, in consultation with CFI and with support from <a href="https://ifmrlead.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LEAD at Krea University</a>. The team focused on digital financial inclusion and consumer protection for women micro- and small-enterprise (MSE) owners in India and interviewed 38 women MSE owners, bank and fintech agents, and fintech executives in India in March 2023. Please note: Akanksha is a composite character based on interview anecdotes.  

It is the middle of the day in Noida in Uttar Pradesh, and an angry customer storms into Akanksha’s small mobile phone and banking agent shop. The customer demands to know why his parents have not yet received the money he transferred to them at Akanksha’s shop yesterday. To calm him down, Akanksha explains that the bank app’s server experienced an electrical outage in the morning that stalled all transactions. However, the customer continues to demand an immediate fix. 
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">As a woman, building trust with male customers has been particularly challenging, but she must do so since most customers are men. </blockquote>
In addition to running her shop, Akanksha is an agent for banks and fintechs, offering mobile money transfers and various utility services. In this scenario, she faces a tough decision. Akanksha must choose how to address the customer’s complaint – she can try to resolve the issue via the bank app, contact her area distributor — the middleman between banks or fintechs and the network of local agents serving customers, or close her shop and visit the bank. How she handles this complaint is critical, as she must maintain her customer base and the hard-earned trust of her customers. As a woman, building trust with male customers has been particularly challenging, but she must do so since most customers are men. 

Akanksha, a woman in her mid-thirties with a bachelor’s degree, is not confident in filing a formal complaint using the app, which only has instructions in English. She also does not want to file a formal complaint out of fear that staff may escalate her issue to upper management, damaging her relationship with bank staff or her distributor. She attempts to contact her distributor on WhatsApp, but he does not answer. Because her husband is busy at work, Akanksha has no choice but to close her shop early and walk to the bank to talk to a staff member in person.  
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-46280" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/SIPA_quote1.png" alt="" width="1074" height="180" /></h2>
<h1>Minor Issues With Major Implications </h1>
While Akanksha’s story is fictional, it is not an uncommon situation for many women MSE owners in India. A team of graduate students from Columbia University interviewed 38 women in India who use digital financial services (DFS) to understand their user experiences with banking and fintech apps, especially concerning the complaints journey. The interviews revealed that a stalled transaction is just one of several common issues faced daily by women MSE owners and agents like Akanksha. Stalled transactions and outages are so common that one interviewee described this as “just a part of life.” Almost all interviewees (35 out of 38) experienced at least one minor issue like this when using banking or fintech apps. Because each instance takes valuable time to resolve and leads to lost revenue, the effects of “minor” issues can significantly impact MSE owners’ businesses. One interviewee reported closing her shop for 15-minute periods multiple times a day to walk to the bank and settle matters in person.  

Akanksha’s experience highlights some of the barriers to complaints resolution and consumer protection for women MSE owners in India, driven by low confidence in DFS and a reliance on personal relationships with distributors and staff. In an interview with one fintech CEO – whose company was also among the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> winners – she said, “Women do not come screaming and shouting; this never happens. Local partners are more approachable. It is a business relationship; if you go to that level, it is also a social relationship.” 

An example of this type of social relationship is how many women agents rely on and highly value their personal relationships with distributors who travel to different communities to collect and disburse cash to agents. One agent even described her distributor as her “mentor and guru.” However, this relationship can also be vulnerable; distributors can exploit agents who depend on them for operational needs and resolving issues. Furthermore, if complaints are made informally to the distributor, which is often true for women, distributors are not incentivized to formally record complaints. As a result, the absence of an official record limits management’s oversight of the challenges women agents face.  
<h1>Finding Solutions That Better Serve Women </h1>
<a href="https://www.microsave.net/2018/10/24/consumer-protection-in-the-digital-age/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Existing literature</a> points to factors such as literacy levels, a difficult interface, and a lack of trust that prevent the adoption and use of DFS. However, there remains a gap in understanding the challenges in post-adoption utilization of services, particularly in the face of weak consumer protection provisions by low-income women users. Therefore, in our study, we aimed to explore how consumer protection policies impacted the experiences of women MSEs in using DFS, particularly with complaint redressal.

We found that, generally, women were not comfortable with the process of submitting formal complaints. Despite fintechs and DFS providers having established complaints handling processes under their consumer protection policies, they are often inadequate in supporting their women users. This results in many women abandoning platforms altogether. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-46281" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/SIPA_quote2.png" alt="" width="1075" height="180" /></h2>
The interviews with women users in India showed that they highly value personal relationships and prefer in-person complaint resolution. However, women face higher challenges to complaint redressal because of their strong preference for resolving issues through social interactions and providers’ lack of gender-sensitive consumer protection policies. As such, to accommodate women’s user preferences, banks and fintechs need to adopt <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/the-case-for-a-gender-intelligent-approach-an-opportunity-for-inclusive-fintechs">gender-intelligent</a> strategies.

Through a gender-intelligent approach, banks and fintechs can better understand how women use complaint resolution processes and ultimately design offerings that address their specific needs. This approach can help <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/the-case-for-a-gender-intelligent-approach-an-opportunity-for-inclusive-fintechs">change entrenched gender inequalities</a> and <a href="https://financialallianceforwomen.org/download/how-fintechs-can-capture-the-female-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">benefit</a> companies’ bottom lines. Therefore, solutions should focus on directly addressing women’s specific needs while considering the ability to achieve scale.

Based on the research interviews, we recommend that banks and fintechs consider the following:
<h3>1. Banks and fintechs should develop support features that strengthen women agents’ ability to use their apps confidently.</h3>
This approach could include robust in-person onboarding, training, and support in learning to use the app’s features. While this element is considered “high-touch,” <a href="https://www.accion.org/the-path-forward-for-human-touch-in-a-high-tech-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the tech-touch balance</a> is vital in providing inclusive financial services. Women users also reported that certain apps and resources were only available in English. Consequently, financial service products should be available in local languages and cater to varying literacy levels.
<h3>2. Banks and fintechs should formalize the full scope of the complaint process for their digital financial services.</h3>
Our research found that many women agents resolve complaints through informal mechanisms such as calling, texting (including WhatsApp), or meeting in person with distributors. Therefore, banks and fintechs should update processes and incentives to record distributor interactions and include them in formal complaint resolution processes and metrics.
<h3>3. Banks and fintechs should build user communities that enable high-touch and in-person support at scale.</h3>
Due to the travel-intensive and vulnerable cash collection nature of the role, most distributors are men. However, there is an opportunity to engage women as distributors to support women agents – one example is creating an “ambassador” program where established and high-performing women agents onboard and help new women agents. The incentive for becoming an ambassador is recognition as an expert and leader within the community. While many of our interviewees said they did not know other women agents, we saw that those who had learned from other women had higher competency levels in using the bank and fintech apps.   
<h3>4. There should be more physical meeting spaces or local offices for women customers to meet staff and raise complaints.</h3>
For example, one gender-intelligent fintech established local meeting hubs to support women using fintech services. By providing a secure environment and personalized assistance, the space motivated women customers to raise issues and embrace a broader range of digital financial services, ultimately improving customer loyalty and lifetime value to fintechs.

These recommendations are merely the beginning of the transformative potential of digital financial services in advancing financial inclusion and consumer protection for women. By taking experiences like Akanksha’s into account during the product design and complaint resolution processes, banks and fintechs can forge a more inclusive complaints-handling strategy. Such an approach would enable women MSE owners and agents to thrive, expand their businesses, and achieve greater economic prosperity. When more women feel they can use DFS and fintech successfully, financial service providers can expand their business reach, demonstrating that gender-intelligent design is a win for all.

Fight Gender Inequality: Prioritizing Women’s Customer Experience in Product Design and Complaint Resolution Processes

Over the last few years, the pandemic-induced transformation of the global economy has fueled a rapid expansion of the fintech sector. This evolution has revealed the potential of fintech to eliminate geographical and physical barriers and enable consumers and providers to gain unprecedented access to information, creating a more efficient, inclusive global financial system.

Nonetheless, the fintech expansion in low- and middle-income markets faces numerous challenges, and several unanswered questions linger. Will the fintech sector maintain its momentum? How will it evolve in a post-pandemic world? What unforeseen challenges await? These queries spotlight the intriguing unknowns within the sector.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">While inclusive fintechs have expressed their commitment to continue serving low-income and vulnerable segments, their ability to sustain that commitment depends on funding. </blockquote>
Earlier this year, we interviewed 12 winners of the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> (IF50) competition and six fintech investors to assess their performance amidst numerous macroeconomic challenges like rising interest rates, decreased food supply, and large price gains. In June 2023, we published the findings of these conversations in a recent report, <a href="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/IF50-2019-2022-Report.pdf">Inclusive Fintech Funding in Times of Uncertainty</a>, which underscored the commitment of inclusive fintechs to serve low-income individuals. To ensure success, these companies are bolstering their emphasis on core business principles, prioritizing customer needs, and actively working toward substantial revenues and profits.

While inclusive fintechs have expressed their commitment to continue serving low-income and vulnerable segments, their ability to sustain that commitment depends on funding. To better understand the fintech funding landscape, we analyzed funding data provided by <a href="http://www.briterbridges.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Briter Bridges</a> from different periods, regions, and market segments. Nearly 75 percent of the fintechs in this dataset have raised capital up to Series B deals. Our analysis focused on four regions: Latin America &amp; the Caribbean, the Middle East &amp; North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. From South Asia, Briter Bridges only collected data for India. From the Briter Bridges data, we examined funding deals from January 2015 to February 2023 and identified four key trends in fintech funding.  
<h1>1. Fintech funding is slowing down globally.</h1>
Since 2015, fintech funding has consistently trended upward – both in terms of the number of deals and total deal volume – with a minor slowdown in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and a significant surge in 2021. Notably, the number of overall deals increased from 484 in 2020 to 851 in 2021, while the total deal volume rose by 96 percent – from USD $5.3 billion in 2020 to $10.4 billion in 2021.

Among the regions, South Asia (representing data only from India) experienced the highest increase in total deal volume since 2015, followed by Latin America &amp; the Caribbean, the Middle East &amp; North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The surge across all regions indicates a promising industry landscape and highlights investors’ interest in fintech across geographies.

[caption id="attachment_46199" align="aligncenter" width="1239"]<img class="wp-image-46199 " src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-24-at-1.21.01-PM.png" alt="" width="1239" height="640" /> Source: Briter Bridges data for fintech deals from 2015 to 2022, excluding mega-deals over $100M.[/caption]

&nbsp;

However, in 2022, the growth in both deal volume and the number of deals was more modest, with a 10 percent increase in deal volume and a 2 percent increase in the number of deals. The number of deals declined or remained stagnant in India, the Middle East &amp; North Africa, and Latin America &amp; the Caribbean, while it increased in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Then, in January and February 2023, the sector witnessed a significant 54 percent decrease in overall deal volume compared to the same period in 2022. Of the four regions, the Middle East &amp; North Africa was the only region to see an increase in overall deal volume during this period, with all others declining.

By Q3 2022, industry stakeholders began experiencing a ‘<a href="https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/fintech/how-cold-is-the-fintech-funding-winter-when-will-the-crisis-end/96054281#:~:text=1%29%20What%20is%20the%20FinTech%20funding%20winter%3F%20Funding,FinTech%20startups%20particularly%20are%20facing%20this%20funding%20winter." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fintech funding winter,</a>’ a term that references the current state of declining funding opportunities and company valuations across the fintech sector. Since then, there has been a <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/fintech-trends-q2-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">noticeable decrease in funding and deals</a> within the global fintech ecosystem during Q2 2023, reaching the lowest level since 2017. In Africa, there was a significant <a href="https://thebigdeal.substack.com/p/winter" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">37 percent year-on-year decline</a> in total transaction value for African start-ups between June 2022 and July 2023 compared to the same corresponding period in the prior year.
<h1>2. Funding remains geographically concentrated with a regional disparity in deal sizes.</h1>
We also observed significant variation in the median deal sizes across different regions. In 2022, the median deal size in Sub-Saharan Africa was $1 million, reflecting the prevalence of very early-stage fintechs. In contrast, the median deal size in 2022 was $6.5 million for fintechs in Latin America &amp; the Caribbean region and $6.4 million in South Asia. This difference illustrates how regions have distinct funding dynamics and growth trajectories.

Looking at trends over the past four years, we see that from 2020 to 2021, the median deal size remained unchanged in South Asia while increasing in the other three regions. From 2021 to 2022, the median deal size increased across all regions except the Middle East &amp; North Africa, which stayed constant.

[caption id="attachment_46200" align="aligncenter" width="1276"]<img class="wp-image-46200 " src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-24-at-1.22.14-PM.png" alt="" width="1276" height="554" /> Source: Briter Bridges data for fintech deals from 2019 to 2022, excluding mega-deals over $100M.[/caption]

&nbsp;

In the dynamic world of fintech funding, four countries – India, Brazil, Israel, and Mexico – received 80 percent of the overall funding in recent years. India leads with a total funding volume of $22 billion between 2015 and 2023, showcasing its thriving fintech ecosystem and investors’ support. Brazil and Israel both secured $4.5 billion in total funding volume, with Mexico attracting $3.7 billion. Funding to Brazil, Israel, and Mexico captured a considerable share of their region’s funding (40 percent, 65 percent, and 32, respectively).

Examining the period from 2020 to 2022, we see that the total deal volume increased in all four countries in 2021. However, in 2022, the total deal volume increased in India and Mexico but declined in Brazil and Israel.
<blockquote>Limited access to formal financial services, combined with rapid digitization in recent years and favorable regulatory frameworks, all contribute to these four countries attracting the majority of regional fintech funding.</blockquote>
Two factors have driven access to funding in these countries. First, consumer demand and unmet needs revealed significant market potential. Second, a conducive enabling environment in the form of regulations and policies encouraged innovation by financial service providers and adoption by consumers. Limited access to formal financial services, particularly credit for low-income individuals and MSMEs, combined with rapid digitization in recent years and favorable regulatory frameworks, all contribute to these four countries attracting the majority of regional fintech funding. For example, in India, <a href="https://www.bain.com/insights/india-fintech-report-2022-sailing-through-turbulent-tides/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">initiatives</a> like the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and updated regulations and policies accelerated digital adoption during the pandemic. Rapid digitization has benefited emerging fintech players, boosting digital financial solutions and driving financial inclusion.

[caption id="attachment_46196" align="aligncenter" width="1101"]<img class="wp-image-46196 " src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-24-at-1.12.02-PM.png" alt="" width="1101" height="505" /> Source: Briter Bridges data for fintech deals from 2020 to 2022, excluding mega-deals over $100M.[/caption]

&nbsp;

While no African countries made it to the list of the top four countries with the largest funding in recent years, Nigeria stood out with the highest deal volume among African countries. It received a modest accounting for 40 percent of the region’s overall funding.
<h1>3. Regional variations in the demand for financial products influence funding distribution.</h1>
The distribution of funding by fintech product categories has shifted over time. Historically, credit products received the bulk of the funding within the fintech sector. Insurance, which typically receives lower levels of funding, surged in 2020 as the pandemic <a href="https://www.bcg.com/industries/insurance/the-strategic-role-of-insurtechs-post-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">accelerated the demand for digital transformation</a>. Insurance fintechs that were able to innovatively leverage digital and analytics became more attractive to investors. Additionally, we observed an increase in the share between 2018 and 2021, although this category declined in 2022. There is also an upward trend in the popularity of personal financial management products (PFM), as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance-management-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more fintechs and digital banks begin offering PFM products or PFM features</a>.

[caption id="attachment_46201" align="aligncenter" width="1197"]<img class="wp-image-46201 " src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-24-at-1.23.55-PM.png" alt="" width="1197" height="661" /> Source: Briter Bridges data for fintech deals from 2015 to 2022, excluding mega-deals over $100M.[/caption]

&nbsp;

Looking at the breakdown of regional fintech funding by product category, we see the importance of catering to the unique financial demands of specific markets. For example, funding for credit fintechs dominates overall fintech funding in South Asia and Latin America &amp; the Caribbean, while the Middle East &amp; North Africa focuses on DFS infrastructure and PFM, and Sub-Saharan Africa prioritizes payments and remittances. Despite the ways in which insurance can enhance the resilience of low-income households, insurance products continue to receive minimal investor attention across all regions. Insurance products are typically offered as part of a product bundle and continue to be <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bede261f2e6b1e5ead0a0ba/t/6399ed1a42246a3d457d56cd/1671032094317/IF50+2022+Insights+Deck.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">difficult to market and sell</a>.
<h1>4. The funding gap for small deals could contribute to the ‘death valley curve’.</h1>
Looking at the past deals of the top 20 investors, we see a discrepancy among different types of funders’ investment strategies and risk appetites. Accelerators and incubators have a higher number of deals, but their median deal size remains relatively modest – often below $500,000. On the other hand, private equity, venture capital, and impact investing funds have median deal sizes ranging from $7 to $20 million, reflecting their substantial investment capacity.

We also see a dip in the number of deals targeted for early-stage fintechs – in the amount of $501,000 – $1 million – by any investor type. In 2020, despite an overall increase of more than 70 percent in the number of total deals that year, the proportion of deals within the $501,000 – $1 million range was only 8 percent. The proportion of deals conducted for this size bracket has remained consistently between 7 to 9 percent over the past 4 years, likely contributing to the ‘<a href="https://hbr.org/2022/04/an-entrepreneurs-guide-to-surviving-the-death-valley-curve" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">death valley curve’</a> experienced by start-ups.

[caption id="attachment_46198" align="aligncenter" width="702"]<img class=" wp-image-46198" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/IF50-blog-post-graph5.png" alt="" width="702" height="440" /> Source: Briter Bridges data for fintech deals from 2015 to 2022, excluding mega-deals over $100M.[/caption]
<h1>Winter is Here</h1>
While global trends indicate that we are living in a fintech funding winter, not all hope is lost. The fintech sector continues to be an area of significant opportunity and innovation, attracting attention from investors globally. Recent funding trends highlight the dynamic nature of fintech investments, as fluctuations in deal volume, regional preferences, and investor interests impact the funding fintechs receive. In addition, because fintech funding responds to specific characteristics of national economies and factors that create an enabling environment – such as the speed of digitalization, level of innovation, regulatory frameworks, and funding gaps for low-income populations – it is useful to observe trends in the fintech industry to understand the market demand and needs for various financial solutions in different markets.

Fintech investors and other stakeholders should adopt a balanced perspective, draw upon the lessons learned from past successes and failures, and continue supporting inclusive fintechs that offer products to low-income households. By doing so, they can effectively guide inclusive fintechs toward sustained growth and impactful outcomes.

Exploring Fintech Funding Dynamics in Recent Years

Slowing economic growth, rising inflation, and climbing interest rates are straining the business models for inclusive fintechs, creating significant uncertainty and new funding challenges. For the past four years, the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> (IF50) global innovation competition identified and elevated cutting-edge, emerging inclusive fintechs driving financial inclusion. These high-potential start-up fintechs address limitations in financial services delivery for unserved or underserved customers by offering a solution among credit, insurance, payments &amp; remittances, savings &amp; personal financial management, or infrastructure.
To better understand the outlook for the sector amidst these market changes, CFI interviewed past IF50 winners and fintech investors to learn how they are adapting to these uncertain times and the impact of the funding challenges on their business models and the low-income customers they serve.
CFI’s latest report has found:

<ul data-rte-list="default">
 	<li>
The total value of deals for early- and growth-stage inclusive fintechs plunged 75 percent in January and February this year from the same time a year ago.
</li>
 	<li>
The median deal size for growth-stage fintechs appears to drop from $20 million in Q1 2022 to $4.5 million in the first two months of 2023.
</li>
 	<li>
Despite the funding pullback, inclusive fintechs say they remain committed to serving low-income and vulnerable communities.
</li>
 	<li>
Investors expect more failures in the short term, but they are cautiously optimistic that the market shakeout will create a healthier sector in the medium term.
</li>
 	<li>
Business fundamentals is the name of the game today for both fintechs and investors. Business fundamentals is the name of the game today for both fintechs and investors. They are focusing on keeping operational costs low, responding to customer needs, and creating a path to sustainability and profitability.
</li>
</ul>

Inclusive Fintech Funding in Times of Uncertainty: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead

CFI Advisory Council Member Rosita Najmi has over 20 years of experience in global development, but she attributes her initial connection to financial inclusion to a personal relationship with poverty as a young refugee who came to the United States from Iran with her family.

Originally a field researcher and social entrepreneur, she has also worked across leading international NGOs to advocate for and employ financial services as a tool to empower and improve the lives of low-income people. As a development economist, she helped stand up the first World Bank global practice for financial inclusion. She then transitioned from operations and development policy functions to funder roles -- across impact investing, private philanthropy, and now corporate philanthropy. She is a long-time and devoted champion of gender equality, and her contributions include efforts to advance women’s economic empowerment, including the creation and funding of <a href="https://www.findevgateway.org/finequity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FinEquity</a> and the <a href="https://data2x.org/financial-inclusion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Data2X Women’s Financial Inclusion Data Partnership</a>. Currently, Rosita serves as a VP of Social Impact at The UPS Foundation, leading strategy, innovation, grantmaking, and measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL).

As Rosita reflects on her career, she contemplates the meaningful way that her professional roles, and the specific order in which they happened, have enabled her to optimize her impact. As a CFI Advisory Council member since January 2022, she continues to work toward achieving a goal that her late mother regularly encouraged: “Make your life count!”
<h3>1. How did you become involved in inclusive finance and what are you working on now? </h3>
RN: My connection to financial inclusion is rooted in a personal relationship with poverty. My family — my late mom, three older siblings, and I — <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/mba/student-life/people/Pages/portrait-project.aspx?profile=rnajmi~pp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">came to the United States from Iran as refugees</a>. We brought three suitcases and $3,000 cash, which my then 15-year-old brother carried in his pockets.

I remember well the judgment and discrimination my family and I faced while living in poverty. I grew up in Tennessee, where there was racism and judgment of families who received government welfare, such as food stamps, which mine did. At that time, food stamps were pieces of paper so it was easy for others to notice when my mom used them at the grocery store.

As early as elementary school, I used to help my mother with her bank account and finances. I couldn’t even reach the counter to see the bank teller! But, because of her accent and English being her second language, my mother was not confident, and I would often help communicate with the bank teller on her behalf.

This personal journey with access to financial services and resources has shaped my priorities and instilled a strong desire to help and empower others, with an emphasis on designing for dignity. I have worked in social and economic development for many years, but my top priority has been to transform financial services into a tool to empower low-income and marginalized people.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">This personal journey with access to financial services and resources has shaped my priorities and instilled a strong desire to help and empower others, with an emphasis on designing for dignity.</blockquote>
I started my career as a field researcher, social entrepreneur, and founder of an international NGO. These experiences were the best education I could have asked for — more than my formal education — to understand families’ financial hardships around the world and the impossible choices that so many are forced to make every day. When I joined the World Bank as a development economist, I helped develop the Bank’s first global practice for financial inclusion. We created the support template to help countries develop and measure progress against national financial inclusion strategies. After that, and for over a decade, I have been a funder of different types of capital, from impact investing to private and corporate philanthropy.

Currently, I oversee grantmaking, strategy, innovation, and measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL) at <a href="https://about.ups.com/us/en/social-impact.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The UPS Foundation</a>. <a href="https://about.ups.com/us/en/social-impact/the-ups-foundation/the-ups-foundation-mission-and-purpose.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">One of the four focus areas</a> is equity and economic empowerment, which includes a focus on women. Whether in accessing finance or moving their goods to markets or across borders, women face unique challenges because of <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/normative-constraints-to-womens-financial-inclusion-what-we-know-and-what-we-need-to-know">social and cultural norms</a>, limits on mobility and agency, and time poverty, among other barriers. We seek to do our part to remove such barriers. UPS’ equity and economic empowerment portfolio also includes career and college readiness for youth, entrepreneurship, and workforce development.
<h3>2. What key lessons have you learned from past work experiences?</h3>
RN: While funding the <a href="https://www.betterthancash.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Better than Cash Alliance</a> (BTCA) during my tenures at both the Omidyar Network and the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, I deepened my understanding of the potential of advocacy. Advocacy is a skill set -- a combination of art and science -- that can transform lives, change policies, and move resources to support underserved or marginalized communities. I also learned how blended finance can play a vital role in global sustainable development. I believe we need varying types of capital — a mixed capital stack — for scale and long-lasting impact.
<blockquote>Advocacy is a skill set -- a combination of art and science -- that can transform lives, change policies, and move resources to support underserved or marginalized communities.</blockquote>
Furthermore, learning and sharing experiences through coalitions and alliances is much more efficient and effective than doing it alone. I am a collaborator and connector and have worked on building and supporting multiple global coalitions and alliances around different topics like impact investing, <a href="https://www.findevgateway.org/finequity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">women’s economic empowerment</a>, <a href="https://www.ictd.ac/programme/digitax/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tax policy and administration</a>, and <a href="https://www.cifaralliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate equity and resilience</a>.

Finally, because of my tenure at <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mercy Corps</a>, I became a strong believer in market-based approaches that lead to sustainable development and empowerment. In contrast to a beneficiary-focused approach, market-oriented models position populations living in poverty as consumers, producers, employees, or entrepreneurs. Market-based approaches use business models and work to catalyze markets to solve development and humanitarian challenges more sustainably and at scale than time and resource-bound interventions. 
<h3>3. If you weren’t in your current professional role, what would you be doing right now?</h3>
RN: I would spend more time advocating to end human rights violations in Iran, especially in support of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160229174442/https:/www.hbs.edu/mba/student-life/people/Pages/wdydwyd.aspx?profile=rnajmi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">women and girls</a> and members of the religion the <a href="https://www.bahai.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bahá'í Faith</a>.
<h3>4. What unique expertise do you bring to CFI’s Advisory Council? </h3>
RN: I strive to bring the following to CFI: (i) my network so I can be a connector for CFI’s applied research; (ii) strategic thinking, especially around creating intersectional outcomes; and (iii) personal experience and passion for designing for dignity and empowerment.

If I had the chance to re-design my career, I would take the same path. The order of my experiences was meaningful; I am a better funder, because I was a grantee first, and I can be an innovator, because I worked in the field, in operations, and on the front lines. I aim to bring my experience wearing these diverse hats to CFI’s Advisory Council.
<h3>5. In one word, what is the current state of financial inclusion today?  </h3>
RN: Transitioning. Many people and organizations have worked hard to build the case for why the sector needs to go beyond solely advancing access. It’s now understood that we cannot declare victory simply when someone opens a bank account and that instead, the customer must build towards resilience to escape poverty and stay out of poverty. Digital financial inclusion can be a tool for both empowerment and equity in development, and it supports government accountability and fiscal transparency, particularly for government subsidies to its citizens and tax administration. Lastly, when I think about the future, especially in terms of climate shocks and war, the need for humanitarian response is increasing at a rapid pace and scale. We must swiftly integrate digital payments into humanitarian responses.  
<h3> 6. What can we learn from fintech that can be applied to financial inclusion?</h3>
RN: Friction management is important. Typically, the goal of payments, especially for access to credit and savings, is to be as frictionless as possible. However, I believe there is a role for friction when it comes to credit. For example, providing notifications or other reminders highlighting an outstanding debt balance would be advantageous when a customer has multiple loans or payment plans. This approach serves the dual purpose of protecting consumers' interests and empowering consumers to stay informed about their financial obligations. In this way, the financial provider is signaling its focus on its bottom line and its commitment to the financial health of its customer.

On the data side, people are already researching and discovering issues related to data misuse, especially data privacy. Fortunately, new laws are helping, but the financial services industry and development actors could also have proactive strategies for the misuse and missed use of data. 
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">The effectiveness of AI relies on the quality of the data employed. If marginalized groups, such as women or people with disabilities, are invisible in the data, these groups are at serious risk of being left further behind.</blockquote>
There is an abundant amount of data being produced, but unfortunately, not all data is used or used optimally. This underutilization can be because of a fear of breaking the rules, especially around data management and governance. Other times, the barrier can be because skill sets are missing in data science. Nevertheless, like how we developed frameworks to guide countries to develop national strategies for driving and measuring financial inclusion, I think there is a need to develop diagnostics and templates that help governments and financial services providers use data to benefit their customers. For example, financial services providers can use data to measure product equity — showing who is using products and services and to what outcomes. Further, governments, academia, civil society, and development organizations can leverage anonymized and aggregated data sets to triangulate with other data sets for insights, innovations, and consumer protection.

I would like to see more ‘data for good’ strategies in the private sector, which can include disaggregating data by <a href="https://data2x.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gender</a>, race, and other classifications and considering the quality of data sets that educate artificial intelligence. The effectiveness of AI relies on the quality of the data employed. If marginalized groups, such as women or people with disabilities, are invisible in the data, these groups are at serious risk of being left further behind.
<h3>7. What are the most crucial issues in inclusive finance that we should prioritize over the next five years?</h3>
RN: We are seven years from the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) deadline, and the COVID pandemic eliminated years of progress. We must compensate for this loss by pursuing interventions with intersectional outcomes. Therefore, the issues I would prioritize in the next five years include:  
<ul>
 	<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="35" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">The misuse and missed use of data</li>
 	<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="35" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Climate risks related to food security, a just transition, adaptation, and resilience</li>
 	<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="35" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1">Gender equality issues related to health and education outcomes, and the social and cultural norms that thwart the full contributions of women and girls</li>
</ul>

Designing for Dignity: Creating Equal Opportunity through Financial Inclusion – Q & A with Rosita Najmi, CFI Advisory Council Member

India’s fintech lending industry has grown rapidly since 2014, with the evolution of new models and approaches to lending. This rapid growth offers the potential for many upsides in the form of <a href="https://www.cgap.org/blog/indian-start-for-digital-credit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">easier access to much needed credit and including hitherto excluded consumer segments</a> who may not have the ability to prove their ‘creditworthiness’. In India, as in other parts of the world, the growth in digital lending has been accompanied by a variety of risks. Some of these risks – such as over-indebtedness, poor market practices of aggressive marketing and collection, and pricing – have long been associated with lenders and need to be addressed as a market conduct issue. However, the digital nature of fintech lending poses several new risks that, combined with traditionally known risks, create an environment of poor consumer outcomes and mistrust of the industry.
<h1>Fintech Risk Barometer Study</h1>
While there has been extensive media coverage around several of the fintech lending risks, these cases tend to be anecdotal and do not provide a sense of which risks are highest priority as the industry evolves. To better understand the multitude of risks the Indian fintech lending industry faces, the <a href="https://faceofindia.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment</a> (FACE) and CFI partnered to conduct a risk barometer study. The resulting <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/fintech-lending-risk-barometer-2022-2023">fintech lending barometer report</a> is the first attempt at identifying how risks are perceived by various stakeholders associated with the fintech lending industry in India and is a crucial first step to documenting how risks evolve.

For fintech lenders, this report presents an opportunity to understand the landscape, identify the opportunities and dangers, and plan or correct their course of action. For regulators, supervisors, and policymakers, the survey findings signal what areas within the Indian fintech industry need to be more closely examined and addressed with urgency.

The fintech lending barometer study followed a mixed methods approach. First, a survey was used to gather initial perceptions of risks, which then was followed by a series of qualitative interviews with select respondents to further understand how emerging risks impact consumer lives. For each risk, the survey asked participants to rank 23 risks on a scale of 1-7, with one being the lowest severity risk and seven being the highest. The survey also captured comments and feedback from survey participants on these risks and the top three opportunities.

Top 10 Risks Identified by Survey Respondents

<img class="alignnone wp-image-45643" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-13-at-2.02.11-PM.png" alt="" width="666" height="775" />

The top three risks identified were unscrupulous fintech lenders, rising cyber fraud and crime, and issues around data privacy. The report is being released at the <a href="https://inclusivefinanceindia.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Finance India Forum 2023</a> and can be accessed <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/fintech-lending-risk-barometer-2022-2023">here</a>.
<h1>Consumer Protection Implications</h1>
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">Industry associations have an inherent advantage in gathering early insights on consumer complaints and experiences from their members and in getting inputs on market trends.</blockquote>
Kate McKee, former senior policy advisor at CGAP, who pioneered thinking on consumer protection for inclusive finance, often referred to the three legs of the ‘<a href="https://www.mfw4a.org/sites/default/files/resources/Kate_McKee_english.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">consumer protection stool’</a> –  regulation, market monitoring and self-regulation, and building consumer awareness – where each of the three legs must be stable in order to responsibly and reliably provide for consumers. While the Reserve Bank of India has been proactive as a regulator in issuing guidelines on digital lending, there is a role to be played by industry associations like FACE and others in enabling market monitoring. Industry associations have an inherent advantage in gathering early insights on consumer complaints and experiences from their members and in getting inputs on market trends. For instance, they may hear about specific instances of fraud from their members which can erode the reputation of the industry in general. This provides associations with a unique opportunity to identify emerging risks and either escalate them to supervisors or establish responsible market conduct. This in turn can boost trust in businesses and offer long term value. For supervisors, this interaction with industry associations can help them stay abreast of market developments and assists with considerations for investing in appropriate suptech tools depending on the nature of risk identified.

A host of market monitoring tools exist and several are summarized in <a href="https://www.cgap.org/topics/collections/market-monitoring-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this toolkit</a> by CGAP. However, effective market conduct supervision depends on timely identification of market risks and reviewing how these risks evolve with market growth. CFI’s consumer protection strategy focuses on strengthening market conduct supervision by researching emerging risks and working with partners who can elevate these risks to supervisors. This partnership with FACE is a step towards this goal and offers insights for industry associations of digital lenders in other markets.

Matters of Urgency: Insights From a Fintech Risk Barometer Study

India has seen a rapid rise in fintech lending since 2014 and the industry continues to evolve with the launch of new models and approaches to lending. Yet, as the industry has scaled and diversified, so have the risks.

The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) and the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) are pleased to partner on this risk barometer study that aims to create a systematic baseline of emerging risks in order to help observe how risks change as the industry matures. The study is part of a market monitoring exercise to understand the range of risks and how they are perceived by multiple stakeholders in the Indian fintech lending sector and this report intends to contribute to the fintech lending industry as it evolves to maturity, combining innovation, inclusion, and impact.

Fintech Lending Risk Barometer 2022-2023

This report and infographic examine data from the 250+ eligible fintech applicants from the fourth Inclusive Fintech 50 competition to better understand the state of early-stage fintechs. CFI analyzes all applications to identify trends and to find innovations with disruptive potential. The massive scale that is only possible with digitalization matters greatly to the financial inclusion agenda, and this year’s IF50 applicants are already collectively reaching 54 million people, many of whom were previously underserved, across 101 countries of operation. The fintechs are young and small now, but as we’ve seen in past years, they grow to reach millions more people and raise millions more in investment. However, despite this tremendous outreach and potential, there are also areas that require attention: funding and gender gaps, inconsistent practices around data privacy and consent, and limited data collection for outcomes management.

Insights from the 2022 Inclusive Fintech 50 Applicant Pool

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 17, 2022 – The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) announced today the fourth cohort of the global Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) competition, which recognizes 50 early-stage, inclusive fintechs that aim to advance financial inclusion. IF50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC. The 2022 winners exemplify the power of fintech to reach underserved individuals and businesses with products and services designed to meet consumers’ needs, preferences, and resources.

The 2022 winners were selected from a pool of 257 eligible applicants with headquarters in 79 countries, with Sub-Saharan Africa representing 40 percent of candidates. The winning startups represent a range of product categories, including credit, digital financial infrastructure, insurance, savings and personal financial management, and payments and remittances. Credit remains the most common type of product offering, with 32 percent of applicants offering a credit solution. The digital financial services infrastructure category displayed the most growth, increasing from 16 percent of applicants in 2021 to 23 percent in 2022.

An independent panel of 35 expert judges with expertise in venture capital, technology, and financial services evaluated the applicants based on their inclusivity, innovation, traction, and scale potential.

The IF50 competition offers winning startup fintechs exposure among investors and media, and provides access to exclusive networking activities, the opportunity to pitch their innovations, and connections to expert support and training provided by IF50 sponsors and supporters. IF50 winners from the past three years have collectively increased their funding by $620 million in the year following their win. This year’s IF50 winners will also gain exposure during CFI’s <a href="https://financialinclusionweek.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Financial Inclusion Week</a> event, running virtually October 17-20. Winners will be announced by category throughout the week, culminating in a global plenary session discussing insights from this year’s competition.

Visa, an IF50 sponsor, provides winners access to <a href="https://practicalmoneyskills.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Money Skills</a> and <a href="https://www.practicalbusinessskills.com/resources/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Business Skills</a>, digital platforms created by Visa to empower individuals and micro and small businesses with financial and business knowledge needed to manage and grow. These tools, together with the networking and publicity that IF50 provides, serve as an invaluable opportunity for startups at the earliest stages of their journeys.

The winners are listed below by main operating region. Full profiles of the 2022 winning fintechs can be viewed at <a href="http://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2022-cohort" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.inclusivefintech50.com/2022-cohort</a>.
<h3></h3>
<h3>East Asia &amp; the Pacific</h3>
Brick

Digicro

LTS Ventures

Salary Hero

SentBe Inc.

wagely

&nbsp;
<h3>Latin America &amp; the Caribbean</h3>
AkinTec

Finaktiva

Imix Latam

Paisa

Prestamype

Quipu Bank

Sofi

Yapu Solutions

Zenda.la

 
<h3>Middle East and North Africa</h3>
Cassbana

 
<h3>North America</h3>
Kaoshi Network

Restart Financial

Sunny Day Fund

 
<h3>South Asia</h3>
Aloi

ARTH

Bimaplan

KarmaLife

Probus

Revfin Services Private Limited

Vitto – Microfinance.AI

Yuva Pay

 
<h3>Sub-Saharan Africa</h3>
BezoMoney

Boost

Crop2Cash

DMA Limited

Ensibuuko

FIC Exchange Plc (Financial Inclusion Centers)

FlexPay LLC

Flow Global

FX Kudi

Infibranches

Jamii.one

Joovlin

Lipa Later Limited

Malipo Circles Limited

MarketForce

Moja Ride

SATIS FINTECH SA

Shecluded

SuiTch SAS

Touch and Pay Technologies Inc

Ukheshe

Umoja Labs

Umojalands Private Limited

Inclusive Fintech 50 Announces the 2022 Winners

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA – The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) today announced the launch of the fourth annual Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) Competition, a global initiative that competitively selects 50 early-stage, inclusive fintechs with innovative business models that aim to advance financial inclusion.

The theme of the 2022 IF50 competition is “Making Digitalization Count.” Rapid advances in the digital economy, further accelerated by COVID-19, are changing the financial services landscape and creating opportunities to drive further inclusion and impact for underserved populations. Early-stage, inclusive fintechs are leading the way by leveraging data and digital infrastructure to deliver valuable products and services to low-income consumers, especially women. “As digitization rapidly increases, underserved individuals and businesses are at risk of being left behind. Visa’s purpose is to help create access and inclusion for all, and we are proud to support Inclusive Fintech 50 and the companies that help ensure everyone, everywhere is brought along the digital transformation journey,” said Beth Hurvitz, Global Head of Social Impact, Visa.

Even with increasing attention to the promise of inclusive fintech, many early-stage fintech companies struggle to secure funding to help them grow. IF50 aims to address this gap by identifying the 50 most promising inclusive fintechs and providing them with visibility to attract investors and other support. Thanks in part to the visibility from IF50, past winners have jointly increased their funding by $620 million in the year following their win. “MetLife Foundation is committed to expanding economic opportunity in underserved and underrepresented communities,” said Tia Hodges, President and CEO of MetLife Foundation. “We are proud to support IF50, which helps to advance inclusion-minded fintechs that are focused on responsible and cost-effective digital solutions.”

IF50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC, and implemented by CFI. In its first three years, IF50 attracted over 1,000 eligible applicants from around the world. Applications are reviewed by an <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2021-judging-panel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">independent panel of judges</a> with expertise spanning financial technology, investment, and innovation. The selection of the 50 winners is based on four criteria: inclusivity, innovation, scale potential, and traction. “The rigorous selection process is a key tenet of IF50,” said Simon Boas of Jersey Overseas Aid. “The applicants go through several stages of vetting to select a truly innovative group of 50 winners with the potential to drive real impact.”

In addition to visibility and credibility, IF50 2022 winners will have access to exclusive networking activities, the opportunity to pitch their innovations, and connections to expert support and training provided by our sponsors and supporters. In addition, winners will be invited to participate in CFI’s <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Financial Inclusion Week</a>, an annual virtual event taking place October 17-20, where inclusive finance stakeholders gather to learn from one another and share key findings.

Other benefits available to this year’s winners include access to <a href="https://practicalmoneyskills.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Money Skills</a> and <a href="https://www.practicalbusinessskills.com/resources/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Business Skills</a>, digital platforms created by Visa to empower individuals and micro and small businesses with financial and business knowledge needed to manage and grow. Winners also have the opportunity to be connected to IF50 sponsors to accelerate their business and social impact.

###
<h3>About IF50</h3>
Inclusive Fintech 50 identifies promising early-stage fintechs driving financial inclusion around the globe through a competitive process led by an independent panel of judges from venture capital, technology, and financial services. Applicants are assessed on the degree to which their target market includes underserved people or businesses, and whether their innovation offers a new value proposition, shows early-stage traction, and can have a noticeable impact on the more than 3 billion financially underserved people globally. Inclusive Fintech 50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC. The initiative is managed by the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI). Learn more at <a href="http://www.inclusivefintech50.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.inclusivefintech50.com</a>.

Inclusive Fintech 50 Launches 2022 Competition to Recognize Fintech Startups Driving Inclusive Finance

Nina Liew

Nikita Chettri

Evelina Durlind

Leonie Rauls

Ulayya Gempur Tirani

Marina Santos Piacente

Eda Dokle

Chantelle Macey

Sugandh Saxena

Jayshree Venkatesan

Ethan Loufield

Safeya Zeitoun

Evelyn Stark

Mayada El-Zoghbi

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Latin America and The Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

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Access Usage Gap

Enabling Environment

Fintechs

Responsible Product Design and Delivery

Small Business Owners

Underserved Groups

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Consumer Protection

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Impact Investing

Alternative Data

Financial Inclusion Strategy

Fintech

Data Privacy

Fraud

Policy, Regulation and Government Initiatives

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Blog Post

Report

Press Release

India is a global leader in financial inclusion. For over a decade, Accion has worked with and learned from India’s innovators, investors, and policymakers to expand economic opportunity for its people and businesses.

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the promise of fintech to help advance financial inclusion. This has been especially true during the pandemic: acceleration in digital adoption, spurring further growth in the inclusive fintech sector. Much of this growth has taken place in Africa, where fintechs raised <a class="Hyperlink SCXW16100441 BCX0" href="https://thebigdeal.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$2.3 billion dollars in 2021, up from $830 million in 2020</a>, helping to catch up with funding levels in South Asia and Latin America.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">While inclusive fintechs are developing innovative ways to reach new customers, meaningful customer segments remain underserved.</blockquote>
With this growth, there also is more data and insights about fintechs and their customers. Last year, two reports, CFI’s <a class="Hyperlink SCXW14958972 BCX0" href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/insights-from-the-2021-if50-applicant-pool" rel="noreferrer noopener">Inclusive Fintech 50: Driving Innovation in an Era of Uncertainty</a> and Catalyst Fund’s <a class="Hyperlink SCXW14958972 BCX0" href="https://bfaglobal.com/catalyst-fund/briter-catalyst-fund-state-of-the-fintech-industry-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">State of Fintech in Emerging Markets </a>(in collaboration with <a class="Hyperlink SCXW14958972 BCX0" href="https://briterbridges.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Briter Bridges</a>), leveraged such data to take stock of the industry’s progress. The reports arrived at similar conclusions: while inclusive fintechs are continuing to develop innovative ways to reach new customers, meaningful customer segments remain underserved and fintech funding remains concentrated.

The truth is that we are still in the early stages of bringing the power of fintech to bear on the challenges that low-income and vulnerable populations face. Advances have certainly been made, but the greatest gains only can be realized through intentional and collective efforts on the fintech frontier. This will help pave the way for strategies to turn these underserved markets into opportunities for growth.
<h1>Outreach to Underserved People</h1>
On the bright side, early-stage fintechs continue to proliferate. Last year, nearly 300 such fintechs applied to <a href="http://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50)</a>, an annual competition to showcase early-stage fintechs driving financial inclusion around the world. Expert judges selected 50 winners from this applicant pool based on established criteria of inclusivity, innovation, scale potential, and traction. 

IF50 applicants have shown a continuous drive to innovate, demonstrated by their broad range of product areas, with varied models, partnerships, and customer acquisition strategies. The fintechs also are finding diverse ways to reach underserved people, such as through the provision of in-person digital skills training, use of agents, and product offerings that can be accessed without a smartphone.

Applicants are also designing solutions to address challenges in areas that are fundamental to people’s livelihoods – including climate resilience, health, and support for micro and small enterprises. For example, IF50 2021 winner <a href="https://gotugende.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tugende</a> uses asset finance, technology, and a customer-centric model to help informal sector entrepreneurs in Africa grow their businesses and access value-added services such as medical insurance. Eighty percent of IF50 2021 applicants reported that their solutions helped customers access essential services during the pandemic, such as healthcare, government relief, and clean energy.

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<img class="size-full wp-image-44679 aligncenter" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Tugende-Snapshot-03-e1655994301976.png" alt="" width="1000" height="599" />

&nbsp;
<h1>Gaps in Inclusivity</h1>
Despite this progress, significant gaps in customer outreach remain. For example, only 23 percent of fintechs in the Catalyst Fund sample reported that women constituted more than 50 percent of their customer base. Moreover, 38 percent of the IF50 2021 applicants do not disaggregate client data by gender.

Catalyst Fund and IF50 both also found that most inclusive fintechs do not focus mainly on low-income people. In the IF50 sample, 41 percent of applicants reported primarily targeting low-income customers. More than 70 percent of startups in the Catalyst Fund sample reported that fewer than 25 percent of their customers live under the poverty line, although poverty rates in the countries where these startups operate are closer to 35-45 percent.

The Catalyst Fund data also showed that as startups grow, they tend to move upmarket. Particularly for early-stage startups looking to raise capital, showing strong acquisition numbers is imperative, and middle- and higher-income customers tend to be <a href="https://medium.com/caribou-digital/what-are-the-limits-of-the-private-sector-in-serving-the-poor-3ee9a9a468fc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">easier and cheaper</a> to acquire.
<h1>Concentration in Funding and Geographies</h1>
The pressure to acquire more customers may be driven by the underlying scarcity of funding for early-stage fintechs. Although investment flows have grown dramatically in recent years, funding in emerging markets is concentrated among very few startups. Out of 101 Sub-Saharan African startups in the IF50 2021 sample, five accounted for 65 percent of the funding. In Latin America, five of 36 applicants received 83 percent of funding.

Not only is funding concentrated among a few startups, but those startups are also based in a select few countries. Sixty-four percent of total funding reported by IF50 2021 applicants went to fintechs based in five countries: Colombia, India, Mexico, Singapore, and the United States. In Latin America, four countries (Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Colombia) accounted for over 99 percent of funding in the Catalyst Fund sample. Such geographic concentration particularly excludes countries with lower levels of financial inclusion. Of the 16 countries in the IF50 sample that received over $10 million, only three have financial inclusion levels below 40 percent. Similarly, <a href="https://qz.com/africa/2029505/everything-you-need-to-know-about-fintech-financing-in-africa/?utm_source=email&amp;utm_medium=africa-launch-list&amp;utm_content=017e81c9-90b4-11ec-8d42-724a485ab421" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fintech funding in Africa is concentrated in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa</a> (87.9 percent), all countries with higher levels of financial inclusion and/or more developed fintech ecosystems.
<blockquote>Not only is funding concentrated among a few startups, but those startups are also based in a select few countries.</blockquote>
Deals are also concentrated in certain types of products: those in payments, digital credit, and neo banks, and those that require a smartphone. In contrast, savings and insurance fintechs receive less funding, as do models that leverage USSD or lower-tech accessibility. IF50 data found that funding to fintechs offering services that require smartphones was about 3.5 times greater than those needing only a basic or feature phone. This may be because lower-tech models cost more to operate and users cannot bear higher-margin pricing.

Investment flows continue to favor men, and along all stages of growth, men founders raise more than women founders. According to 2021 IF50 data, women founders, on average, raised one-third the amount raised by men founders.

&nbsp;

<img class="wp-image-44683 size-full aligncenter" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/IF50-blog-post-stacked-graph-1-e1656002022248.png" alt="" width="1000" height="652" />

&nbsp;

Overall, the data demonstrates that the majority of inclusive fintech startups, particularly those servicing more excluded segments, continue to find it difficult to access investment capital.  Being able to prove the business case of untapped markets is difficult, but Okapi Finance, an IF50 2021 winner, aims to demonstrate the potential by focusing on women merchants in Africa’s informal sector.

&nbsp;

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-44681" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Okapi-snapshot-01.png" alt="" width="1000" height="599" />

&nbsp;
<h1>Looking Ahead</h1>
While there are opportunities for early-stage fintechs to build commercially viable businesses that are truly inclusive, more effort is needed from the broader ecosystem to ensure that innovative solutions can take hold. Startups are continuing to emerge on the frontier, but they need access to the visibility, resources, expertise, and networks that support their growth into sustainable and impactful companies.

Supporters of digital financial inclusion can help by directing greater attention to innovative startups in overlooked markets. Competitions like IF50 and those organized by <a href="https://www.womensworldbanking.org/fintech-innovation-challenge-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Women’s World Banking</a> and the <a href="https://www.afi-global.org/newsroom/news/applications-open-for-the-2022-afi-inclusive-fintech-showcase/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alliance for Financial Inclusion</a>, and market insights provided by research organizations like Briter Bridges, also help to raise awareness. Incubators and accelerators, such as <a href="https://bfaglobal.com/catalyst-fund/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Fund</a>, can assist in de-risking less proven models and making them more market-ready via grant funding, mentorship, and other venture-building services. And finally, greater investment, particularly in the $250K to $1M range, can help to fuel early-stage ventures pioneering innovative solutions.

The application period for the 2022 <a class="Hyperlink SCXW136892565 BCX0" href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> competition will open Monday, June 27, and inclusive fintech startups – especially those at the frontier – are strongly encouraged to apply. The 2022 theme is “Making Digitalization Count.” IF50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief.

Driving Inclusivity on the Fintech Frontier: Let’s Make It Count

Growth of digital financial services has accelerated since the outbreak of COVID-19 as distancing measures forced customers to access financial services remotely. Fintechs have fueled this massive growth by using innovative delivery channels or business models to provide financial services to previously unserved or underserved customer segments.

In 2021, CFI conducted research to understand how early-stage fintechs and their customers coped during the pandemic. Most research on resilience focuses on either fintechs or customers but fails to account for their interplay. Based on this insight, CFI created the <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/a-pact-to-promote-resilience">PACT framework</a>. PACT stands for Preparedness, Access, Capability, and Ties – four key dimensions that influence one another and contribute to the resilience of both fintechs and their customers.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">Most research on resilience focuses on either fintechs or customers but fails to account for their interplay.</blockquote>
As part of our research in shaping the PACT framework, we spoke to investors to better understand issues of resilience considering COVID-19. Our conversations revealed that most inclusive fintechs survived the pandemic either by continuing existing business operations or adapting their business models to changing customer needs and to new external conditions, such as extensive lockdown measures. While we spoke with dozens of investors, we closely examined the investment processes of three impact-driven investors that fund fintechs working to expand financial inclusion and promote financial health. To do this deeper dive, CFI worked with a team at <a href="https://tameo.solutions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tameo Impact Fund Solutions</a> – an independent consulting firm providing services to impact funds, fund managers, and investors with the aim of promoting accountability and transparency in the impact investing industry.

Our conversations aimed to identify best practices for processes implemented throughout the investment cycle and which indicators should be monitored to support resilience. These discussions provided the basis for our analysis on how investors can help strengthen the resilience of both their investee companies and the fintech customers served.

In this blog post, we discuss inclusive fintechs’ investment process, how investors monitor and evaluate inclusive fintechs, and identify three actions that investors – and other stakeholders – should take to build resilience into their business models.
<h1>Investor Processes and How They Monitor and Evaluate Inclusive Fintechs</h1>
The three investment firms we spoke with invest at various stages in fintechs’ development – from seed stage to Series A. The firms’ investment processes can be broken down into four stages: prospecting, due diligence and investment decision, post-investment and monitoring, and exit.

All firms integrate impact management throughout their investment processes. The indicators monitored by the impact investors vary depending on the type of investment, but largely focus on growth metrics (e.g., number and volume of transactions, loans, accounts, etc.), and ability to reach target customers (e.g., number of customers/MSMEs served). Other indicators point to competitiveness (e.g., product diversity and pricing), and business risk and sustainability (e.g., proportion of non-performing loans, customer satisfaction, and profit metrics). Fintechs must be able to demonstrate clear impact objectives, and investors must be able to affirm these objectives through due diligence and monitoring.

The table below summarizes the four stages of the investment process and includes a few examples of indicators monitored.

Strengthening a PACT for Resilience: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Investors

Fintechs have been successful by seeking out market gaps and providing customers with easier and better ways to lead their financial lives. In the past, growth and opportunity have been industry bywords. But two years into a global pandemic, another term is driving conversations in both fintech and inclusive finance: resilience.

Fintechs have proven their resilience by surviving the early months of the pandemic and reemerging smarter, with optimism intact, and ready to take on new growth opportunities. In response to COVID-19, many fintechs <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/rapid-response-for-social-payments-during-covid-19">jumped on the opportunity to deliver government and humanitarian cash transfers</a>, which was also a key input to the resilience of millions of low-income households. The last two years saw millions of people turn to high-tech opportunities to improve their lives: gig work through platforms, digital government-to-person (G2P) payments, and digital commerce platforms. Aside from offering access to products, fintechs also provided information about health and education, which helped people cope with the health and economic shocks brought on by COVID-19.

Concerningly, this <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/beyond-covid-19-new-opportunities-for-fintech-companies.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">focus on resilience may be difficult to sustain</a>. Because of a rapid increase in fintech investments, there is a chance that fintech’s attention may be drawn away from resilience as they turn towards incentives to move upmarket in search of growth and profit.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">Inclusive fintechs and impact investors must continue to consider the importance of resilience – both for the fintechs as well as their low-income clients.</blockquote>
CFI believes that mission-driven, inclusive fintechs can better serve their low-income customers and grow their businesses. However, to do so, inclusive fintechs and impact investors must continue to consider the importance of resilience – both for the fintechs as well as their low-income clients.
<h1>Introducing the PACT Framework for Resilience</h1>
To fill what we determined was a gap in our community’s ability to identify and analyze the shared dimensions of resilience, CFI – with support from <a href="https://www.comicrelief.com/partners/jersey-overseas-aid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jersey Overseas Aid and Comic Relief</a> -- recently unveiled the <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/a-pact-to-promote-resilience">PACT framework</a>. Adapted from <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2628707" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">academic</a> and other socio-economic development programs, the framework explains how both fintech resilience and customer resilience are driven by a combination of abilities and access to resources across four non-linear dimensions: Preparedness, Access, Capability, and Ties (Networks).

While researching and developing the PACT framework, CFI explored the COVID-19 experiences and responses of more than 20 winners of the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) competition</a>. In addition to the IF50 winners, we spoke to investors, accelerators, and industry associations about how they approached inclusive fintech during lockdowns and the aftermath.
The dimensions of the PACT framework are outlined below along with calls to action for the inclusive finance community.
<h1>1   Preparedness</h1>
The pandemic has been a case study on the importance of planning and the consequences of not doing so, and many fintechs were unprepared for the initial shock. All stakeholders in inclusive finance and digital financial services should have in place business continuity plans that consider the risks and responses for both probable and unlikely internal and external events. The plan should outline responses to risks that hurt business – staff turnover, climate-related shocks, wars – and those that spur hard-to-manage growth, such as the pandemic-fueled social protection payments.

Many fintechs do not have comprehensive business continuity plans in place, but they should. It starts by understanding the relationship between fintechs and customer resilience – awareness donors and investors should have to help fintechs achieve both growth and preparedness.
<h1>2   Access</h1>
Access does not equal impact. While we know that many low-income people accessed services during the pandemic, there is still no strong data available on impact. Additionally, there is a lack of data on the impact of access (or lack of access) to financing that enabled some fintechs to get through the pandemic more easily. Inclusive fintechs that had strong ties to accelerators and existing investor networks were able to arrange bridge funds or raise new capital. Others found themselves forced to drastically reduce their services, lay off staff, or change their business models – sometimes moving their business away from the low-income customers they sought to serve.

<blockquote class="pullquote--left">Fintechs have a tremendous opportunity to collect data on customers’ ability to cope with and respond to shocks.</blockquote>
Because of the many different services and business models of fintechs, impact measurement is complicated. But as data-producing and data-driven companies, fintechs have a tremendous opportunity to collect data on customers’ ability to cope with and respond to shocks (in addition to their saving, borrowing, and spending behavior). This data is not only useful for research and sharing with impact investors, but also provides valuable business information to inform product design and growth efforts.

<h1>3   Capability</h1>
Fintechs are known for being agile. Agility is also a characteristic of low-income people. Both are accustomed to pivoting quickly to find solutions to increase income and reduce expenses or adapt their skills to new work. In this framework, capability is focused on advice-seeking behavior, know-how, and the ability to respond quickly in terms of adversity.
In the last year, there have been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcqVnqH9vHc&amp;list=PL30fMMRd3G_4BUL_Uib6BV-QGR9ipaZTC&amp;index=21" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">many anecdotes</a> that provide good reason to offer kudos to fintechs for their contributions to customer resilience – but without systematic data on how fintech capability can strengthen customer capability, it is difficult to build on these efforts or understand nuances that could drive greater impact. An investment in measurement and integrating data collection into the customer platform has the potential to be useful to fintechs, impact investors, and donors. We hope that fintechs’ data-driven approaches will soon extend to impact measurement as the sector grows.

<h1>4   Ties</h1>
The value of ties goes beyond personal and business relationships. Fintechs and their users have a unique opportunity to forge community bonds that are stronger than a simple customer-provider relationship.
The pandemic showed this. Many fintechs provided health and education information to their customers or helped their users classify their services as “essential,” so they could continue operating during government shutdowns. Current users, agents, and civil society organizations helped new fintech users sign up for and access government payments or gig platforms. Fintechs also found board members, investors, and accelerator colleagues who could pitch in to respond to the many issues the pandemic threw their way. Finding ties to measurement experts would be a useful next step.

<blockquote>With a continued focus on resilience and using the PACT Framework as a guide, we can embed resilience in inclusive fintech to support their preparation for inevitable future storms.</blockquote>
With a continued focus on resilience and using the PACT Framework as a guide, we can embed resilience in inclusive fintech to support their preparation for inevitable future storms. We can also improve customers’ preparedness and increase their capability to manage through adversity. The PACT framework is a first step towards understanding the interplay between fintech resilience and customer resilience – an area worthy of further investigation. Together we can help low-income households and businesses benefit from inclusive fintech.
For more details and examples of these four points in practice, we encourage you to read the <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/a-pact-to-promote-resilience">full publication</a>.

For Inclusive Fintechs, Resilience Is Growth’s Much-Needed Companion

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of digital financial services in providing access to essential services is undeniable. Digital financial services have enabled governments and nonprofits to deliver timely social protection payments and aided families and friends of those in need to quickly share financial resources. The rise of platforms and small business fintechs allowed for new forms of commerce that have kept people employed and grown gig work opportunities, which helped customers in small villages and large cities alike to purchase goods needed for their households.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">We need data, metrics, and measurement standards to better understand and move the needle on measuring resilience.</blockquote>
The role fintechs have played over the last two years is clear. We have data about the growth of fintechs during the pandemic, on how much capital they have attracted from investors, and many anecdotal stories about how individuals and firms using fintechs have experienced direct benefits from moving to digital solutions. But while there are many stories of the positive relationships between fintechs and their customers during the pandemic, we need data, metrics, and measurement standards to better understand and move the needle on measuring resilience.

With the support of <a href="https://www.accion.org/institutional_partnerships/jersey-overseas-aid-comic-relief">Jersey Overseas Aid and Comic Relief</a>, CFI conducted research to better understand fintechs, their resilience, and the impact they have on the livelihoods of low-income customers. CFI’s research on fintech resilience is the first attempt to set forth a framework and call to action to understand the interconnectedness between progress at the provider level and the implications for users. Through our research, we found that, by and large, fintechs are operationally resilient, although many early-stage fintechs did have to resort to layoffs and salary cuts, or to slowing growth plans. However, measuring resilience — whether at the level of financial institutions or customers, as well as how they influence each other — is at an early stage of research.
<blockquote>PACT measures resilience as a combination of abilities and access to resources across four dimensions: Preparedness, Access, Capability, and Ties (Networks).</blockquote>
To support our work in understanding how to measure and quantify fintech’s resilience and impact, CFI developed the PACT framework. This helps us analyze the resilience of both fintechs and low-income customers, and see where and how there are direct connections between the two. PACT measures resilience as a combination of abilities and access to resources across four dimensions: Preparedness, Access, Capability, and Ties (Networks). This framework can inform investors and donors who are looking to support low-income customers.

A PACT to Promote Resilience

About a month ago, I participated in a webinar on the <a href="https://www.wri.org/research/state-climate-action-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">State of the Climate Action Report</a> produced by the World Resource Institute. I was distressed by the magnitude of what needs to be done to delay the rapid warming of our planet which, unless halted, will soon make the world uninhabitable for the majority of people, and the speed of change necessary to reach some climate goals.

In particular, discussions related to diffusion theory – the non-linear progression of change when adopting new technologies typically depicted as an S-curve – were eye-openers. Adoption is expensive and limited to the few die-hard believers when a new technology is launched. But over time, as costs decline, there is an exponential growth in adoption, which eventually flattens out as adoption becomes universal. The adoption of electric vehicles is an apt case in point.
<img class="alignnone wp-image-43700 size-full aligncenter" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-15-at-11.26.07-AM-e1639593107845.png" alt="" width="2282" height="1511" />(Credit: <a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/adoption_curve.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.business-planning-for-managers.com/Worpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/adoption_curve.jpg" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">Investaura Ltd</a>.)
However, diffusion theory seems to apply to more than just technological adoption. In fact, to me, it’s also an explanation of how change happens in society: for example, how certain songs become popular, public health practices are adopted, and languages evolve.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">A clear shift is happening in inclusive finance that resembles the latter stages of the S-curve.</blockquote>
As I reflect on this past year and where we are in inclusive finance, it is evident that a clear shift is happening that resembles the latter stages of the S-curve. Perhaps “mainstreaming” is the appropriate nomenclature in this case. While in its early days, the inclusive finance space comprised a closed group of select stakeholders who believed that the financial system needed to go beyond serving corporations and high-net-worth individuals, today there is near-universal consensus that financial and all systems – be it transportation, food, or financial services – need to be inclusive.

I see four trends in inclusive finance that are symbolic of this shift:
<h2>1. Customer adoption of DFS is accelerating at an exponential pace.
</h2>
Country-focused research initiatives by various agencies have reported a clear acceleration of the rate of adoption of digital financial services, which is often the first step in onboarding a customer to the formal financial system. We hope that the next edition of the <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Findex</a>, to be released in the first half of 2022, will provide representative and comparable data to substantiate this trend. The pandemic was a clear mobilizer, but government transfers of social payments using mobile money and other digital channels were pivotal in spurring the uptake of DFS among low-income marginalized communities.

GSMA’s <a href="https://www.gsma.com/sotir/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">State of the Industry</a> report noted the marked global expansion of mobile money. There are now more than 1.2 billion registered mobile money accounts, with growth in 2020 twice as high as originally predicted. In other words, adoption is happening at an accelerated pace. Concurrently, the number of active users also increased exponentially. While it took a decade to reach the first 100 million active users, the next five years saw an increase to over 300 million active users – a milestone worth celebrating.
<h2>2. Large companies are adopting inclusive finance as a core business.</h2>
When Dan Schulman went to PayPal in 2014, he was one of the early adopters of financial inclusion, later announcing a shift to financial health in 2019 for PayPal’s overall vision. For most other large financial services companies, inclusive finance was at most a part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) function.
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">Today, most financial services companies have inclusive finance as their core business.</blockquote>
Today, most financial services companies have inclusive finance as their core business. I recently met with AXA’s Emerging Customers team, a core business team solving real-life risks with creatively-structured insurance products designed, priced, and distributed in ways that directly meet the needs of low-income consumers. Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of AXA Emerging Customers, said, “it’s not about making the same products miniature, it’s about completely redesigning insurance for new population segments.”

Similarly, Mastercard’s core business is about serving small businesses everywhere. To achieve this lofty goal, they are structuring partnerships, testing new models, and solving pre-system-level problems through their institute, the <a href="https://www.mastercardcenter.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Center for Inclusive Growth</a>. But these partnerships go well beyond financial services companies. Corporations like Walmart, Cargill, Syngenta, and many others are re-imagining their value chains and embedding financial services in ways that allow them to reach previously excluded customers.
<h2>3. More startups are adopting inclusive finance as a core business.</h2>
It’s not just the large corporations. Inclusion is top of mind for early-stage fintechs, too. <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Inclusive Fintech 50</a> (IF50), an initiative implemented by CFI and sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Comic Relief/Jersey Overseas Aid in partnership with IFC and Accion, was launched in 2019. Each year thousands of fintechs globally submit their data to be considered for the competition. Even as the process has become more rigorous each year, with requirements to provide evidence and substantiate approaches that reach underserved segments, the sheer number of early-stage fintechs that participate gives a glimpse of what’s <a href="https://bfaglobal.com/catalyst-fund/briter-catalyst-fund-state-of-the-fintech-industry-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">happening in the broader fintech space</a>. The 2021 competition uncovered incredible fintechs providing an array of services to underserved populations, many of which directly supported low-income customers to survive and recover from the pandemic.

For instance, during the pandemic, the Mexican neo-bank <a href="https://bankaya.com.mx/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bankaya</a> deployed agents at retail points such as supermarkets to educate potential customers on Bankaya's digital savings products. Within nine months of their launch, Bankaya reached over 132,000 customers, 52 percent of whom are women. Colombian fintech <a href="https://avista.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Avista</a> has been leveraging its AI-driven, internal credit scoring algorithm to provide credit to financially underserved pensioners. Others such as <a href="https://www.thriveagric.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ThriveAgric</a> in Nigeria and <a href="https://www.sasa.solutions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SASA Solutions</a> in South Africa are helping smallholder farmers gain access to information and financial services via their platform, while <a href="https://gotugende.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tugende</a> is providing asset financing and helping Ugandan micro-entrepreneurs build credit scores, digital profiles and avail other services like life insurance and safe riding training.
<h2>4. Even tangential businesses are staking claims to inclusive finance.</h2>
Perhaps not as clear-cut as the previously cited examples is the emergence of complex financial products, like cryptocurrencies, using inclusion as their raison d’etre. While these solutions may eventually solve an inclusion problem by allowing someone to transfer money between jurisdictions at relatively low rates, they still have a long way to go. Many of the reasons that prevent low-income people from joining the digital economy – lack of identification, limited access to smartphones, cost of data, to name a few – are not addressed by cryptocurrencies. Yet, these companies see it as important to support their work by adopting the language of inclusion.

&nbsp;
<h2>Still Early on the Curve</h2>
The diffusion of things that are good for people and society is undeniably desirable. A large number of people today are benefitting from increased access to financial services. But how do we guarantee the benefits received are improving the livelihoods of consumers? A decade of asking people to report on their practices and validating them through independent certifications has not done enough to diffuse good practices. We still see <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/trust-of-data-usage-sources-and-decisioning-perspectives-from-rwandan-mobile-money-users">sub-standard practices</a> that are harmful to low-income clients, even among institutions that are thought to have sound policies.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">If inclusion is everything, then it’s no longer anything.</blockquote>
We need to ensure that consumers are protected. We need to guarantee that financial services address consumers’ livelihood needs and do not create a vicious cycle of indebtedness or hide costs in a convoluted pricing model where consumers are unable to understand or compare services. We need to go beyond payments services and prioritize financial services that enable investments in livelihoods and create opportunities to increase income. We need transparency and more data that helps investors, researchers, and consumers differentiate the charlatans peddling snake oil from those offering quality services.

Perhaps one place to start is coming up with a new name. If inclusion is everything, then it’s no longer anything. What should the next chapter of inclusive finance be called? Send us your creative solutions, and together let’s start the work on the diffusion of positive impact together.

Diffusion Theory, the S-Curve, and Why We Need to Go Beyond Inclusion

The <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> application data from the third year signals continued progress on innovations to onboard low-income customers, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic:
<ul>
 	<li>Inclusive fintechs are using creative approaches to serve new customers. From retail partnerships that help drive customer acquisition, to insurance platforms offering micro-coverage, to native language chatbots, to enhanced biometric identity verification solutions, early-stage inclusive fintechs are pursuing outside-the-box solutions to reach un/underbanked people around the world.</li>
</ul>
Nevertheless, there are two areas of concern:
<ul>
 	<li>Funding concentration persists. While fintech investments across emerging markets have been increasing, early-stage inclusive fintechs continue to face disparities based on geography, funding status, and gender.</li>
 	<li>Potential customer risks persist around data usage. Although data is central to the business models of inclusive fintechs, some applicants require customer consent related to data, and some still do not.</li>
</ul>

Insights from the 2021 Inclusive Fintech 50 Applicant Pool

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 27, 2021 – The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) announced today the Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) competition’s 2021 cohort, recognizing 50 fintech startups that are leading the way in helping low-income customers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic. IF50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC. The winners of this year’s competition join winners from previous years in representing a range of impactful ways in which fintech startups are helping vulnerable, underserved users improve their financial lives.

The 2021 winners were selected from a pool of 377 applicants, representing 77 countries, with Sub-Saharan Africa representing 44 percent of all candidates. The winning startups represent a range of product offerings, from credit solutions to payments providers and fintech infrastructure. An independent panel of 22 expert judges selected the fintechs through a rigorous process that evaluated their inclusivity, innovation, traction, and scale potential.

Participation in the competition provides startups with visibility and credibility among investors, as well as media and partnership exposure. Nineteen winners from the 2019 cohort have since raised a collective $182.5 million in investment.

IF50 winners will further benefit from introductions to investors, including the <a href="https://bfaglobal.com/catalyst-fund/circle-of-investors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Fund Circle of Investors</a>, and exposure during CFI’s <a href="https://financialinclusionweek.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Financial Inclusion Week</a>, November 1-4, 2021. Visa, an IF50 sponsor, will also provide winners access to <a href="https://www.practicalbusinessskills.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Business Skills</a>, a global digital platform created by Visa to deliver free educational resources to help small and micro business owners make confident, informed decisions to run and grow their businesses. IF50 winners will also automatically pre-qualify for <a href="https://partner.visa.com/site/programs/fintech-program.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visa Fintech Fast Track</a>, a program that advances the process of integration with Visa and its network of partners, helping fintechs enhance and introduce new, innovative payment experiences. These tools, together with the networking and platform that IF50 provides, deliver invaluable opportunities for startups at the earliest stages of their journeys.

The IF50 application process revealed some key facts about how fintech startups have adapted to support the COVID-19 pandemic recovery.

Most applicants report a growth year despite difficult COVID lockdowns. This growth reflects growing confidence in the use of digital financial services, accelerated by a desire to limit social contact during the pandemic, as well as fintech startups’ ability to adapt to meet users’ needs.

The pandemic may have caused setbacks for some startups, requiring measures to support users such as extending credit tenures, providing grace periods, or even waiving fees. Even those that experienced setbacks, however, are now optimistic as they predict increased demand for their services.

The fintechs that raised investment funds this year reported larger deal sizes than those in the year previous.

Applications from women-led fintechs accounted for 27 percent of the pool but constituted 36 percent of the winners.

Full profiles of the fintechs can be viewed at <a href="https://bit.ly/IF50winners21" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.inclusivefintech50.com/2021-cohort</a>.
<h2>Key Quotes:</h2>

Inclusive Fintech 50 Announces 2021 Winners

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA, June 28, 2021 - The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) has launched the third year of Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50), a competition to recognize the most promising inclusive fintech startups pushing the frontiers of innovation. This year, the competition seeks to recognize early-stage fintechs that are helping low-income customers and micro- and small enterprises not just respond to the pandemic, but rebound, rebuild, and recover after the past year’s devastation.

IF50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC. In its first two years, IF50 attracted applications from over 700 startups across 162 countries, cumulatively reaching almost 175 million customers. Each year, an independent judging panel of global fintech experts reviews the applicants to select 50 winners based on four criteria: inclusivity, innovation, scale potential, and traction.

Participation in the competition provides startups with visibility and credibility among investors as well as media and partnership exposure; 19 winners from the 2019 cohort have since raised a collective $182.5 million in investment. In addition, this year’s winners will be featured in early November during Financial Inclusion Week, an annual virtual event organized by CFI for the inclusive finance community to discuss the latest developments and key issues facing the sector. Winners will also be featured in this year’s research findings and media coverage. For example, <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/briefs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">several publications from the past two years</a> prominently featured IF50 winners.

For the 2021 competition, new benefits to IF50 winners include access to <a href="https://www.practicalbusinessskills.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Practical Business Skills</a>, a global digital platform created by Visa to deliver free educational resources to help small and micro business owners make confident, informed decisions to grow their businesses. Winners will be able to customize and co-brand this turn-key solution to support the local recovery efforts of the small and micro businesses they serve. Eligible winners will automatically pre-qualify for <a href="https://partner.visa.com/site/programs/fintech-program.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visa Fintech Fast Track</a>, a program that aims to speed up the process of integrating with Visa and its ecosystem partners and helps fintechs enhance and introduce new and innovative payment experiences. These tools, together with the networking and platform that IF50 provides, serve as an invaluable platform for startups at the earliest stages of their journey.

As the COVID pandemic continues to rage in many parts of the world, fintech startups and services have proven to be an invaluable lifeline for vulnerable people, facilitating remittances, digital payments, and payments associated with government safety nets. Higher rates of fintech acceptance present new opportunities for startups to go beyond traditional offerings to deliver valuable financial services that will ensure the financial health and resilience of underserved people.

Expert judges include a diverse group of independent fintech experts, investors, and founders, including:
<ul>
 	<li>Nejoud Al Mulaik, Director, Fintech Saudi</li>
 	<li>Tarek Assad, Managing Partner, Algebra Ventures</li>
 	<li>Sarah Austrin-Willis, Senior Director, Financial Solutions Lab, Financial Health Network</li>
 	<li>Ginger Baker, Head of Financial Access, Plaid</li>
 	<li>Anne-Marie Chidzero, Chief Investment Officer, FSD Africa Investments</li>
 	<li>Bernhard Eikenberg, Managing Partner, Emerging Markets, Community Investment Management</li>
 	<li>Brad Jones, CEO, Wave Money</li>
 	<li>Buhle Goslar, Africa CEO, Jumo</li>
 	<li>Jojo Malolos, CEO, JG Digital Equity Ventures and Data Analytics Ventures</li>
 	<li>Kunal Upadhyay, Advisor, ADB Ventures</li>
 	<li>Shwetank Verma, Co-Founder and General Partner, Leo Capital</li>
 	<li>Gabriela Zapata Alvarez, Independent Consultant (Financial Inclusion)</li>
</ul>
The application window opens today, and interested startups are encouraged to apply by July 23 via the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/apply">IF50 website</a>.

# # #

Key quotes:
<ul>
 	<li>Managing Director of CFI, <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/people/mayada-el-zoghbi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mayada El-Zoghbi</a>, highlighted the timeliness of the theme noting, “As the world continues to wrestle with the challenges presented by the pandemic, fintechs can play an important role in helping those most impacted move towards recovery. For example, by supporting micro- and small enterprises, which have been devastated by the pandemic but will be ground zero for eventual economic recoveries across the developing world. As difficult as this crisis has been, it has prompted a surge in fintech innovation and an openness to new ideas, the benefits of which could be applied to other challenges beyond the pandemic. We need to be intentional about how we can use this as a springboard for making advances elsewhere, such as with women’s financial inclusion, the responsible use of data, and in navigating the impacts of climate change.”</li>
 	<li>Beth Hurvitz, Global Head of Social Impact, Visa Inc. noted, “Digital payments are an onramp for financial inclusion, helping people and businesses meet their needs and stay afloat in the current context. Fintechs are key to enhancing access and the benefits of digital adoption for the underserved. Visa is committed to work with the payments ecosystem on initiatives such as Inclusive Fintech 50, to support SMB owners to become digitally enabled and rebuild stronger, more competitive and resilient businesses for the recovery of our communities.”</li>
 	<li>Krishna Thacker, Director, MetLife Foundation, noted, “At MetLife Foundation, we recognize the ability of tech to reach low-income people further and faster, but we’re also focused on engaging the customer and changing their financial outcomes. Through Inclusive Fintech 50, we want to identify, recognize and support organizations that are going beyond inclusion to build resilience and financial health for low-income customers – a need highlighted by the pandemic.”</li>
</ul>
# # #
<h3>About IF50</h3>
Inclusive Fintech 50 identifies promising early-stage fintechs driving financial inclusion around the globe through a competitive process led by an independent panel of judges from venture capital, technology, and financial services. Applicants are assessed on the degree to which their target market includes underserved people or businesses, and whether their innovation offers a new value proposition, shows early-stage traction, and can have a noticeable impact on the more than 3 billion financially underserved people globally. Inclusive Fintech 50 is sponsored by Visa, MetLife Foundation, and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief, with support from Accion and IFC. The initiative is managed by the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI). Learn more at <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.inclusivefintech50.com</a>.
<h3>About The Center for Financial Inclusion</h3>
The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) works to advance inclusive financial services for the billions of people who currently lack the financial tools needed to improve their lives and prosper. We leverage partnerships to conduct rigorous research and test promising solutions, and then advocate for evidence-based change. CFI was founded by Accion in 2008 to serve as an independent think tank on inclusive finance.
<h3>About Visa</h3>
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network – enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information visit About Visa and @VisaNews.
<h3>About MetLife Foundation</h3>
At MetLife Foundation, we are committed to expanding opportunities for low- and moderate-income people around the world. We partner with nonprofit organizations and social enterprises to create financial health solutions and build stronger communities, while engaging MetLife employee volunteers to help drive impact. MetLife Foundation was established in 1976 to continue MetLife’s long tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. From its founding through the end of 2019, MetLife Foundation provided more than $900 million in grants and $87 million in program-related investments to make a positive impact in the communities where MetLife operates. Our financial health work has reached more than 17.3 million low- and moderate-income individuals in 42 countries. To learn more about MetLife Foundation, visit metlife.org.
<h3>About Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief</h3>
In 2018, Comic Relief and Jersey Overseas Aid announced a four-year £8 million partnership called ‘Branching Out: Financial Inclusion at the Margins’ to improve access to affordable financial services for those at the margins of society in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Zambia. Comic Relief and Jersey Overseas Aid believe that one of the best ways to do this is by transferring knowledge to build responsible and inclusive financial systems, incubating FinTech, and focusing on service delivery to increase bottom-of-the-pyramid access to financial services including bank accounts, savings, insurance and credit, providing low-income households with the means to plan for the future as well as unexpected events. The partnership grants support a diverse set of organizations, made up of international and local NGOs, with each grantee delivering programs designed to meet different community and national needs in addressing financial inclusion.
<h3>About Accion</h3>
Accion is a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world, with a pioneering legacy in microfinance and fintech impact investing. We catalyze financial service providers to deliver high-quality, affordable solutions at scale for the three billion people who are left out of — or poorly served by — the financial sector. For 60 years, Accion has helped tens of millions of people through our work with more than 160 partners in 55 countries. More at http://www.accion.org.
<h3>About IFC</h3>
IFC—a member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. In fiscal year 2020, we invested $22 billion in private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.

Media contacts: Lauren Braniff, Vice President, Strategy and Communications
Center for Financial Inclusion: lbraniff@accion.org