Lifting millions from poverty by increasing access to basic financial services

Scientia Professor Ross Buckley at The University of New South Wales has led a major international research project that proposes a four-level strategy for developing country governments to follow in providing the infrastructure to allow potentially billions of people to access basic financial services.

The research was supported by an ARC Linkage Projects grant, and undertaken in conjunction with Professor Douglas Arner of the University of Hong Kong and Professor Dirk Zetzsche of the University of Luxembourg, with additional industry support from the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

Improvements in facilitating identification, and creating platforms to carry out transactions, are key elements of the FinTech for Financial Inclusion report. It outlines four key pillars of improved financial infrastructure to help under-served communities gain easier access to critical financial services which provide the capacity to save, receive government welfare payments, and pay bills easily.

Research findings from Professor Buckley’s broader ARC-supported work in regulating digital financial services in developing countries have since been reflected in the laws of a wide range of countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and informs advice regularly given by The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

	Some 1.7 billion people around the world lack access to the most basic financial services. This is expensive, complicates their lives and tends to keep them trapped in poverty.

 

Image: Accounting spread sheets. Credit: iStock.com/utah778.