How can banks lead the charge for financial inclusion?

What drives innovation in the financial sector? Sometimes, it’s the courage to challenge convention, innovate, and prioritise inclusivity. Forward-thinking ideas paired with scalable solutions can create opportunities for democratising access to financial services and empowering underserved communities.

For banks, the challenge is not just adopting new technologies but reimagining their role in fostering inclusion. By leveraging innovation and collaboration, they can redefine banking and create lasting, impactful change for those who need it most.?

Top five strategies to better serve the unbanked

Financial inclusion has the power to transform lives, yet millions around the world remain unbanked or underbanked. To bridge this gap, banks can adopt these strategies that not only expand access but also create sustainable solutions tailored to underserved communities:

1. Invest in people: True innovation isn’t just about advanced tools; it’s about bold, motivated teams who push boundaries. Investing in talent and fostering a culture of creativity ensures that human capital remains at the core of transformation.
2. Embrace banking-as-a-service: Focus on embedding banking capabilities like onboarding or KYC into ecosystems where users already exist, optimising processes and making financial access seamless for customers.?
3. Build collaborative ecosystems: Successful banking-as-a-service hinges on shared goals between technology providers, banks, and other stakeholders. By working together, these players can create ecosystems that amplify efforts to reach the unbanked while ensuring sustainability and scalability.?
4. Expand access points: The absence of physical branches should no longer be a barrier to financial inclusion. Integrating financial services and building access points into everyday platforms like e-commerce or digital wallets allow banks to reach underserved populations.?
5. Streamline operations to scale: Managing risk, ensuring compliance, and maintaining operational efficiency are critical to scaling efforts. By modernising backend processes, banks can focus on expanding their reach and addressing the needs of new markets without sacrificing reliability or security.

Creating a future where finance is truly inclusive requires vision, determination, and the right strategies. It’s not just about technology but about rethinking the way financial services are delivered, building solutions that prioritise access, scalability, and collaboration. With these approaches, the financial industry can empower the unbanked and underbanked, transforming lives and bridging the gap to true inclusion.?

A special thank you to Kelvin Tan for sharing his valuable insights in one of our podcast episodes. For a deeper dive into the podcast, listen to the full episode here:??? ???

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