Nongovernmental organizations can help facilitate financial inclusion by partnering with the private sector, spreading financial literacy through education, ensuring mobile phones reach women and voicing what financial services beneficiaries need, according to a group of industry leaders.
Despite gains in the number of people worldwide who have opened bank accounts — 700 million during the past three years — the gender gap persists and many bank accounts lie dormant, according to the most recent Global Findex report that measures how people interact with financial products.
The increase in the number of people banked “happened almost exclusively through use of digital technology,” said Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president of Women’s World Banking, during the Global Philanthropy Forum in Washington, D.C., last week.