Access is only the beginning

The challenge

An account can be a gateway to saving, payments and resilience. Understanding exclusion means looking at affordability, identity requirements, connectivity and trust alongside account availability.

What the number does—and does not—say

The estimate concerns adults without financial accounts globally. It does not measure the quality of an account or imply that every account holder actively uses digital finance.

A question worth investigating

Where do people abandon onboarding, and which barriers can a provider actually remove?

Labs research direction: start with a defined population and location, review the source methodology, and validate assumptions with people working in the sector. This question is our interpretation; the statistic alone does not establish causes or prove a particular solution.