The recently revised FATF Standards create new opportunities to apply proportionate AML/CFT measures that recognize women’s generally lower risk, helping close the gender gap in financial inclusion if policymakers act intentionally.
We unpack the biggest challenges that digital financial services pose to consumer safety, and recommend what providers, financial authorities and other actors can do to ensure that digital financial inclusion remains safe, fair, and trusted.
Our latest Findex blog takes a deep dive into Findex 2025 data at the intersection of climate shocks, resilience, and financial services, and underscores the vital importance of generating bottom-up data on climate adaptation.
Despite global progress, meaningful gender gaps in account ownership still persist in 65 economies. Our latest Findex blog unpacks new data on women’s financial inclusion and identifies the opportunities ahead.
Financial health is rising on global agendas, but measuring it remains fragmented. The 2025 Global Findex expands coverage across four key dimensions, offering a step toward global benchmarks while balancing local realities.
Women do 80% of the labor in India’s turmeric value chain, much of it grueling and manual. Solar dryers and peelers could ease this burden, improve quality, raise incomes, and build climate resilience with support from green finance tools.
In the latest blog in our Findex series, we look at the importance of accelerating digital merchant payments and what is needed to move Sub-Saharan Africa from potential to momentum.
While new FATF updates aim to combat money laundering, financing of terrorism, and fraud, they also raise important questions about how implementation will affect financial inclusion. We offer analysis on Recommendation 16 (or the 'Travel Rule').
Part of CGAP’s new series on the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025, we draw from CGAP's and Accion's work to highlight six opportunities that need to be prioritized to unlock a golden opportunity for embracing growing digitization to shift financial inclusion from access to impact.
New data from the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025 reveals significant progress on financial inclusion. But while much has been achieved, challenges remain and new solutions are needed to help reach the last mile and to unlock the power of financial services for development.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently adopted a revised travel rule for payments and value transfers – known as Recommendation 16 (R.16). The adoption of the rule raises some important questions – why was this revision required and what is the scope of the changes?
CGAP’s Impact Pathfinder shows that uptake and use of digital payments can benefit women-owned micro and small enterprises by reducing barriers to entrepreneurship, enabling business growth, and promoting financial security.
Too often, impact measurement focuses on what’s easiest to track, rather than what’s most useful for decision-making. We challenge conventional approaches to impact measurement and management (IMM), offering a practical way forward: use cases that align IMM strategies with investment context, purpose, and outcomes goals.
CGAP is 30. We reflect on the progress made in advancing the lives of people living in poverty through financial inclusion over the past 30 years, and what comes next.
Climate risks pose challenges for vulnerable communities, FSPs, and their supporters. Understanding these risks—and how public and private actors can respond—is key to advancing climate adaptation and building resilience.
Inclusive finance is a critical, yet underutilized, tool for supporting low-income women’s climate adaptation, and funders can play a key role by helping FSPs overcome key barriers to delivering climate-smart, gender-responsive financial products and services.
The FATF just adopted a revised version of its guidance on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) and financial inclusion. Several other updates came out of the meeting, with implications for financial inclusion work - CGAP offers an analysis of these updates.
As the financial landscape grows more complex, integrating gender into regulatory data will help financial sector authorities fulfill their mandates more effectively, contributing to a more inclusive, responsible, safe, and sustainable financial sector.
As carbon markets evolve from niche climate interventions into a multi-billion-dollar industry, a critical truth is emerging: gender inclusion is no longer optional. It is essential to the permanence, equity, and scalability of carbon projects.
Financial institutions often neglect the specific needs of women, despite evidence showing women are valuable clients. We advocate for a gender-sensitive approach to financial inclusion to address these issues and improve women's economic potential.
