Research & Analysis

The Next Chapter for Women’s Financial Inclusion: Moving Toward a Visible Step-Change

The current state of women's financial inclusion is uneven, with many women in low- and middle-income countries still unbanked. A new approach integrating public and private sector efforts is crucial to address these challenges. CGAP’s gender conceptual framework aims to offer a new vision of women's financial inclusion (WFI) through a whole-of-market approach, requiring commitment from both sectors to drive impactful change.

Young Women's Financial Inclusion: What Works

This paper summarizes nearly two decades of learning to help practitioners realize the social and business case for financially including young women. It presents customized strategies covering product design, delivery, financial capability building, and social intermediation to address the needs of different segments in this diverse and critical client group.

Inclusive Fintech: How Startups are Bridging the Finance Gap for Microenterprises

Inclusive fintech startups are leveraging innovative credit products to support microenterprises in emerging markets. These startups use data, channel partnerships, and tailored pricing to make financial services more accessible and suitable for microenterprises. This focus note features a range of case studies based on CGAP's research and highlights the potential and actual impacts of microenterprise fintech models.

Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystem (RDFE): A Conceptual Framework

Building on decades of global and country knowledge, this Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystem (RDFE) conceptual framework seeks to encourage financial sector authorities, and other key ecosystem actors, to boost financial consumer protection in the digital era with a holistic vision of the ecosystem.

Empowering Small Giants: Inclusive Embedded Finance for Micro-retailers

Financial inclusion is becoming more feasible for many excluded and underserved micro-retailers, thanks to the emergence of new B2B e-commerce companies that are digitizing the final stage of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) supply chain. This report outlines various business models that incorporate last-mile retailers into digital ordering platforms, offering them convenience, transparency, and a wide range of products.

Financial Inclusion and Disruptive Innovation: Regulatory Implications

This working paper explores the latest wave of disruptive financial services innovations to better understand the regulatory changes that allow EMDEs to harness their financial inclusion potential while containing consumer and financial sector risk.

8 Billion Reasons: Inclusive Finance as a Catalyst for Climate Action

We cannot tackle climate change effectively without inclusive financial services. CGAP outlines five areas for collaborative action between stakeholders working on climate change and those working on inclusive finance in order to leverage inclusive finance to scale grassroots climate action.

The Role of Data in Inclusive Insurance

With 3.8 billion people in emerging markets lacking adequate insurance coverage, data plays a crucial role in enabling insurers to comprehend these segments' specific needs and risk profiles. This, in turn, helps develop more accurate risk assessment and pricing models for inclusive insurance offerings.

From Crisis to Resilience: The Role of Inclusive Finance in Fragile Countries

Inclusive finance can bolster resilience and unlock opportunities for low-income people in fragile countries. CGAP identifies three levers of change for funders: leveraging humanitarian cash transfers, understanding informal financial services, and improving local market facilitation.

The Building Blocks Supporting Open Finance

This working paper introduces the concept of an inclusive data ecosystem as one where low-income people’s data trails are used to improve their financial inclusion. The paper highlights open finance as a catalyst for inclusive data ecosystems and identifies key enabling layers that drive the success of open finance and, by extension, an inclusive data ecosystem.