Photo by Ullas Kalappura, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest Photo by Ullas Kalappura, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest

Customers

The number of people with access to a financial account is steadily rising. Globally, 69 percent of adults in 2017 had accounts, up from 51 percent in 2011. But there are stark differences among countries—China and India are at 80 percent, while Pakistan and Sierra Leone have only 22 percent of adults banked. And the gender gap in account use is unchanged over the past decade at nine percentage points worldwide. Moreover, one in three people in developing countries had not used their accounts over the past year, according to the 2017 Global Findex.

CGAP's work on customers seeks to better understand the financial lives of poor people, particularly women, youth, and the forcibly displaced, among other vulnerable segments. What we learn will help financial services providers design products and services that better meet the needs of low-income people. We believe that creating value for customers increases account uptake and use, which in turn gives poor people more opportunities to improve their well-being. Providers also benefit because customers who see the value in services offered tend to be more loyal, use more financial products, and generate more revenue for providers.

Latest Research

Publication

Emerging Trends in National Financial Inclusion Strategies that Support Women’s Entrepreneurship

Women entrepreneurs continue to face persistent gender-based barriers that impede their success – such as unequal access to financial accounts, constrained credit, and normative roles that keep women in the role of primary caregivers. Improved financial inclusion can help reduce some of these barriers. This WBL-CGAP Brief presents data collected by the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) project on how National Financial Inclusion Strategies can spur policy and regulatory reforms in support of women’s entrepreneurship. 
Publication

Combining Open Finance and Data Protection for Low-Income Consumers

Open finance gives low-income consumers greater control of their personal information, helping make their data work for them, giving them access to more products at lower costs through multiple and easy-to-access channels, and allowing for remote consumer onboarding. Under open finance, with consent...

Infographic

Young Women and Financial Services: Maximizing Impact

Research has shown that marginalized young women can benefit from financial services in both economic and non-economic ways. But with over half a billion women aged 15-24 in the world, the life stages, needs, and contexts of this population are tremendously diverse. Among which segments of young women could investments in improved financial services make the most impact? This infographic highlights findings from a recent CGAP segmentation exercise.

Latest Blogs

Blog

Women Are Being Digitally Excluded Globally – How Do We Fix That?

On this International Women's Day, we reflect on the state of women's digital and financial inclusion globally. At CGAP, we believe digital financial inclusion is a necessary condition for women to be digitally included and economically empowered.
Blog

How Do Gender Gaps in Financial Inclusion Link to Economic Indicators?

The Global Findex 2021 shows that while the gap in account ownership between men and women is closing in some countries, there are still significant regional differences. We explore four factors that might impact the gender gap in account ownership.
Blog

In Senegal, Supporting Rural Women Starts with Reshaping Gender Norms

MyAgro partnered with CGAP and Dalberg Design to explore how they could expand their outreach to Senegalese women and weren’t surprised to learn that social norms were the number one barrier standing in their way.