Bank Digital Transformation? Altruistic Potential For ending Inequality Or Academic Overkill?

A research report on Digital Financial Services(DFS), by authors Tarig Abbasi and Hans Weigard, made key observations and raised questions about the potential for digitization adoption in banking to sustain customer relevance, business model profitability, reduce the unbanked, increase GDP and create jobs, particularly among the poor.

Quite a haul, to say the least!

Abbasi and Weigard further state, citing leading Fintech analysts, Juniper Research, over 2bn mobile users will have used their devices for banking purposes by the end of 2021, compared to 1.2bn 2016 globally-a 67% increase.

What are the prospects of DFS to serve as a bridge out of poverty, locally, nationally and internationally?  

The authors moreover note that the number of people world-wide having a bank account grew by 700 million between 2011 and 2014. In fact, they say, 62 percent of the world’s adult population has an account; up from 51 percent in 2011: “…Three years ago, 2.5 billion adults were unbanked. Today, 2 billion adults remain without an account. This represents a 20 percent decrease (Asli et al., 2015)…”

Does this show that the growth of DFS through, mostly mobile and internet banking, has the potential to achieve the goal of universal ?nancial access?

What are your thoughts?