Pakistan has been trying to improve financial inclusion for the last 20 years with little success. Are new digital licences the answer?

Three years ago, LTS Ventures was tasked with building a simple microfinance platform for Laos’s army of village banks and savings unions. It took off like a rocket, boosting financial inclusion, cutting fraud. Now the firm is eyeing fresh external funding and expansion across southeast Asia.

Not long ago, correspondent banking was as basic as finance got. These days it is compliance and cost-heavy and in the crosshairs of aggressive and powerful regulators. Little wonder that so many banks are exiting small or fragile markets – actions that help their bottom line but hinder efforts at financial inclusion.

Demographics and technology are creating new markets for financial services in population segments long ignored by traditional banks. The region is seeing a feeding frenzy in fintech startups – and the banks are responding with a new strategy: get ready to meet ‘co-opetition’.

Many parts of Africa present formidable obstacles to financial inclusion. Euromoney speaks to some of the pioneers that are using technology to bring far-flung populations into the financial system.

The world has been pressuring Brazil about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest within its borders for decades. New ESG-style initiatives are being adopted by Brazilian banks and businesses, but it could be the climate impact closer to home that’s creating the impetus for real change.

The vast majority of Bangladesh’s consumer economy happens through small shops shackled by logistics, scale and access to capital. ShopUp aims to bring some of the fintech and financial inclusion principles we have seen elsewhere to this highly populated and fast-growing country.

Neobanks are targeting less wealthy people in both developed and developing markets – a constituency that has traditionally been neglected by incumbent banks because of legacy costs. But it’s an increasingly political issue and where does this leave people who still need access to cash and branches?

One of the stars of Estonia’s post-Soviet generation, André Küüsvek, talks to Euromoney about escaping lockdown in Kazakhstan, expanding the NIB’s environmental remit and the risks posed by rising inequality.

Merger shows Indonesia e-commerce coming of age, but can the financial services assets be combined?

There are hopes that the innovation will assist with financial inclusion. But is gold ownership the way to achieve this?

Black-owned broker-dealers have largely been excluded from the mainstream of corporate debt and equity capital raising. The bulge-bracket banks are now working to correct this, inviting firms owned and staffed by racial minorities, women and veterans to lead their own deals and showcase their capabilities to corporate clients.

A ban by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on banks denying services to whole sectors could hit their corporate responsibility efforts

With its unique model of direct lending to microfinance institutions and bringing large investors to the table, BNP Paribas has put financial inclusion at the heart of its agenda.

Social distancing and government payments are turbo-charging digital bank’s growth.

The country is losing the war on the coronavirus, as well as wasting the ensuing digital payments opportunity eagerly grasped by others in Latin America.

The government’s response to the lack of financial inclusion is to build thousands of new banks throughout the country, but it faces a big challenge in weaning potential customers away from the black economy.

Fintechs, banks and government are working together to build clever new digital services and boost financial inclusion in a country where millions are unbanked. For now, collaboration is the name of the game.

Over the last two years, Bank of America has been overhauling its low-to-moderate income business, redesigning branches and products, improving employee retention and working with community partners, but will the bank get the credit its actions deserve?

A new generation of digital products has slashed the cost of remittances and helped the unbanked meet short-term household or business liquidity needs, but there has been a downside.

GoPay is southeast Asia’s answer to Ant Financial. Its CEO comes with a background in the most micro level of finance: empowering village housewives to buy things to cook with. How will he build a business backed by the biggest names in global private equity?

Improving social mobility, caring in the community, supporting employees in challenging times and committing to equity – Bank of America has shown a long-standing commitment to D&I.

Which banks are doing the most to impress and attract their future employees? A potential young recruit gives her opinion.

As cities around the US see populations increase, so the smaller banks that serve low- to moderate-income urban families are being squeezed out. New York is no exception. Financial inclusion is at risk of becoming an urban myth.

Global Findex Report released by World Bank; usage and savings targets remain elusive.

It needs to be about more than helping people to move money.

The plight of the unbanked in the US’s poorest regions is a modern-day scandal in the world’s richest nation. Southern Bancorp is one bank seeking to address the problem. Euromoney goes to the heart of the battle to beat financial exclusion in rural America.

Three transport groups push into financial services; financial inclusion intended as a profitable mainstay.

CEO has broader ambitions as firm turns 10; impact investing still modest in Asia but growing.

India receives global attention for its digital innovation as a tool of financial inclusion, but it couldn’t get off the ground without a unique non-profit institution charged with creating the infrastructure.