New study examines financial technology and inclusion in emerging markets
Nairobi
A new market study reviews the evidence on how financial technology is reshaping access to payments, credit and savings across emerging markets — and where the gains have been uneven.
The International Research Institute has published “Financial Technology and Inclusion in Emerging Markets”, a market study examining how digital payments, mobile money and alternative credit have changed access to financial services.
The study draws on comparative country data and primary fieldwork to distinguish measurable gains in access from the areas where progress has been slower or harder to verify, and it sets out the assumptions behind each estimate.
“The headline figures on inclusion are real, but they are not evenly distributed, and some of the most-cited numbers measure account ownership rather than active use,” said Director of Research Karolina Nowak-Dubois. “We have tried to separate what the data can support from what it cannot.”
As with every Institute publication, the study states its data sources, methods and funding, carries a licence permitting reuse with attribution, and links to the underlying data appendix.
The full study is available in the Institute’s publications library.