Impact of Digital Financial Inclusion
Let’s explore the different levels of impact by following the stories of three individuals: a private citizen, a small business owner, and a government employee. These stories are based on the problems and challenges of real people.
Private citizen
Section titled “Private citizen”Our first individual is an indigenous/rural community member without easy access to banks. The banks that do exist aren’t local and would charge significant fees for this individual to use their services, preventing her from participating.
Her biggest concerns are finding ways to pay for basic items and receive payments without paying the fees that banks require. She has family in other countries who want to send her remittances, but she can’t receive the payments.
Digital financial inclusion can help her accumulate the wealth she needs to grow herself and her community. With an accessible digital solution, she can receive and use remittance payments while also managing her expenses more easily and cheaply.
Small business owner
Section titled “Small business owner”Our second individual is a small business owner in a region that lacks sufficient digital infrastructure. He has a profitable business, predominantly on a local level.
To run his business, he needs certain supplies not readily available in his home country.
The supplies are available in a nearby country, but there are no good financial pathways for exchanging money between his country and the nearby country.
Digital financial inclusion can provide him an easy way to connect to suppliers in other countries. Currently, he has to travel to other countries with cash and local banks provide non-optimal exchange rates that have daily limits. Thus, he must stay a week at a time to transfer the money needed to buy his supplies. He is most excited by the prospect of running his business more efficiently and effectively, and possibly expand his business.
Government employee
Section titled “Government employee”Our third individual is a government worker who needs to set policy and direct local funding for her country. Her goal is to ensure that more of her country’s population participates in the formal economy.
Her concern is that there are inter-related technical, legal and social problems, and that available solutions are complex to develop and implement.
Digital financial inclusion can allow her to bring more individuals into the formal economy. These individuals will have more reliable and safe access to the finances needed to run their lives. Additionally, the government would save a significant amount of resources if the economy became more digital and less cash-based.