Building a secure and inclusive global financial ecosystem

Around two billion adults worldwide are excluded from the formal financial ecosystem. Fortunately, as digital technologies become increasingly prevalent, opportunities emerge to advance access to and usage of formal financial services among underserved individuals—opportunities that can support individuals’ financial health and contribute to sustainable development. However, many challenges and questions remain surrounding how best to advance access to and usage of these services.

Since the summer of 2014, the Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) team has helped to identify these challenges and explore these key questions in an effort to provide policymakers, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the general public with information that can help improve financial inclusion around the world.

In the 2017 FDIP report, Brookings experts John D. Villasenor, Darrell M. West, and Robin J. Lewis build upon the findings of the first and second FDIP reports to assess progress toward financial inclusion among 26 geographically, economically, and politically diverse countries. The 2017 report explores key developments in the global financial inclusion landscape, highlights selected financial inclusion initiatives within the 26 FDIP countries over the previous year, and provides targeted recommendations aimed at advancing financial inclusion.

On August 31, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings held a forum to launch the 2017 FDIP report and discuss key research findings and recommendations with a diverse group of financial inclusion experts.