Deepening Financial Services Adoption: Whitepaper by FSS Tech

The White Paper explores Financial Inclusion initiatives in the Pacific Islands, supported and funded by the Central Banks of the Pacific Island nations, the Australian and New Zealand Governments, the European Union, the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.It studies global best practices in Financial Inclusion, including the world’s largest Financial Inclusion program – the India Post Payments Bank and the South Africa Post Office initiatives, supported by FSS Technologies’ Digital Payment Solutions. The use of Biometric and Smart ID based authentications, Mobile Payments and Card Payments have had a strong impact, and enabled the deepening of financial access to the underserved.Globally, Financial Inclusion initiatives have gained importance, as the focus on reducing income distribution disparities increases. The emphasis on enabling a larger percentage of the world population to be educated on financial services, and providing them access to basic and mainstream services such as accounts, payments, affordable finance and more, has spurred innovation, with technology emerging as a key enabler for Financial Inclusion. And the outcomes have not been disappointing. According to the World Bank Financial Inclusion Database (Global Findex Database 2017) , a study of financial access in low income economies demonstrates the quantum leap that certain economies have taken in providing access to individuals to basic financial services such as accounts. At a regionally aggregated level, the percentage of the population over 15 years having access to a bank account, increased from approximately 32% in 2011 to almost 70% in 2017 in South Asia, from 20% in 2011 to <40% in 2017 in Sub-Saharan Africa and from 40% in 2011 to <65% in Europe and Central Asia, the largest gainers of financial inclusion in this period.FULL WHITEPAPER CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE.