
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.
Featured Collections
Latest Research
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.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...