Fintech and digital financial services are rushing in to help refugees and migrants access and transfer money, but their innovation isn’t just changing how humanitarian aid agencies operate – it’s also offering solutions for broader financial inclusion challenges.

Cutting-edge technologies are being harnessed to bring affordable financial services to hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets. They offer a glimpse into how financial services in the rest of the world may develop.

As an ecosystem to support and build the social bond brand starts to emerge, could the market outstrip its green cousin? There is a good chance, given the breadth of problems and the financing needs behind them. But some big challenges lie ahead.

In the refugee camps of Jordan and Lebanon, life for the many of the 5 million Syrians displaced by civil war somehow goes on. A whole new financial ecosystem is needed to support the amazing resilience and initiative of many of these refugees, who have little prospect of going home. It presents a new challenge for NGOs and they need the help of investors, financial institutions and the private sector. Euromoney visited camps in Jordan and urban areas in Lebanon to talk to aid workers, government and non-government officials and the refugees themselves to find out what role the banking system can play in alleviating the greatest humanitarian challenge of this century.

Climate change finance for the V20 and other vulnerable states will need innovative thinking. It turns out plenty has already taken place, including a detailed proposal to bring funding to those who can’t raise it independently.

Costa Rica’s ambitious commitment to reducing carbon emissions places it at the forefront of the fight against climate change. But its politicians worry that, with financial aid being focused elsewhere, it could effectively be punished for its early adopter status.

Pacific island states like Kiribati, the Cook Islands and Palau are among the most exposed in the world to climate change. It is not just rising sea levels that threaten to obliterate them, but also more extreme storms and tides, the acidification of the seas that provide their livelihood, and drought. Worse, their relative obscurity makes it hard for them to state their case, they lack the institutional capacity to approach multilateral funding sources and many of them are flat broke anyway. What can they do?

No nation is more at risk from rising seas than the Maldives. Yet the government seems more interested in tourism than sustainability, and access to international funds is difficult. Has the climate change debate lost relevance in the country that inspired the creation of the V20?

The future of climate change finance lies in its ability to attract private capital. It is a complex task, but the key to its success will be in keeping products offered to investors as simple as possible.

There is an abundance of funds seeking to channel money into climate finance projects in vulnerable countries, with the Green Climate Fund in the vanguard. But why is so little money reaching the countries that need it?

There are so many challenges related to climate change, so many disparate actors required for their remedy and so much money required to do it, that it is tempting to see the whole situation as unfixable. Perhaps that is why some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change are not willing to talk about it. There is one positive counterbalance: all the ingredients needed to meet climate finance goals are available. But getting the money where it needs to go, with private capital alongside, will require a level of global coordination rarely seen.

Cesar Purisima was secretary of finance of the Philippines when Typhoon Haiyan devastated much of the country. It was a lesson he hadn’t forgotten when he became the founding chair of the V20, a vehicle for the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations to speak collectively.

It is rare for financial market professionals to feel they are helping to save the world, but a new capital markets deal from the World Bank to help the poorest countries cope with pandemics might be doing just that