New Study Finds Banks have $380 Billion Global Financial Inclusion Opportunity

A new report from Accenture and CARE International UK, has found that financial inclusion can be a viable business strategy and estimates that today the global opportunity is $380 billion. The opportunity comes from closing the small-business credit gap at average lending spreads and adding fee-based services and bringing in unbanked adults into the formal financial system.

Commenting on the results of the study, Simon Whitehouse, a senior managing director in Accenture’s Financial Services Operating Group said,

“The traditional view has been that banking the unbanked and underbanked tended to be low-end, unprofitable and philanthropic. But new business models, enabled by digital technologies, are helping banks write a new rulebook for what is possible.”

In the survey, only 23% of banks surveyed had financial inclusion as part of an existing strategy, highlighting that there are significant opportunities for banks that commit to addressing financial inclusion in the near future either through closing the SME lending gap or bringing in unbanked adults into the financial mainstream.

Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group

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