Financial Inclusion Unlocked

In 2007, Pioneer, a commercial insurer founded in Manila in 1954, set out to sell insurance “in sachet form, in bite-sized affordable chunks for the underserved and unserved.” Volume II of the compendium documents two of its early experiments: Sparxx, a prepaid savings-and-insurance card, and the OFW Savers and Wellness Club, which covered the families of overseas Filipino workers. That same year,...

Microinsurance Compendium 20th Anniversary Series | Episode 1: Craig Churchill — Origins of the Compendium In 2006, the Munich Re Foundation and the International Labour Organization (ILO) published Protecting the Poor: A Microinsurance Compendium . It established the foundations of microinsurance as a field of practice and policy, providing shared language, conceptual frameworks and operational g...

Impact investing in financial inclusion has come a long way from the early days of development finance. The question today is no longer whether investing in underserved populations can generate returns. It is whether the sector is moving fast enough, reaching far enough, and measuring what actually matters. Latin America sits at the centre of this story. The region has one of the most developed in...

Fundación Génesis Empresarial in Guatemala is one of the largest microfinance institutions in Latin America, and its approach to measuring success is built around a framework it calls the Ruta del Desarrollo, or the development pathway, sketched out on a napkin nearly four decades ago. In this episode, we're joined by Edgardo Perez, CEO of Fundación Génesis Empresarial, to talk about how that...

The financial inclusion sector has made significant progress on access. More people than ever hold accounts, use digital payments, and can access credit. But access alone doesn't protect a small business owner in Lagos when floods shut her street for three weeks, or a street vendor in Delhi when a heatwave keeps customers away for a month. The next frontier for financial inclusion is resilien...

Digital financial services have been one of the most significant development stories of the last two decades. Across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, DFS has extended financial access to hundreds of millions of people, enabling remittances, savings, small business payments, and emergency transfers in ways that were simply impossible before. But scale brings scrutiny. As adoption deepens and DFS reac...

The global insurance industry has spent centuries developing tools to manage risk, yet the people most exposed to climate shocks, from smallholder farmers to displaced communities, have historically been the least able to access them. Humanity Insured is an industry backed charity working to close that gap, with an ambition to make £2 billion in insurance coverage accessible to 30 million people b...

Consumer protection is fast becoming one of the defining challenges of the mobile money era. From fraud and impersonation scams to opaque fees and inadequate recourse, the risks facing digital financial services users are growing, and as mobile money scales across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and other emerging markets, so do the vulnerabilities it creates. This episode takes a hard look at the...

Climate shocks are intensifying, and inclusive financial institutions are caught in the crossfire. As extreme weather events grow more frequent and severe, MFIs and inclusive banks face a dual challenge: protecting portfolio quality while continuing to support the clients who need them most. This episode takes a hard look at what happens when climate disaster strikes. Severe flooding in Pakistan w...

Stories stick where statistics don't. In this episode, we head to Central Asia to explore what happens when financial literacy stops being a classroom exercise and starts becoming entertainment.  Our guests Buazhar Abdykadyrova is a master trainer at the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic. Recognising that institutional expertise has limits when it stays in a classroom, Buazhar built her so...

In this episode, Jack met Gayatri Murthy, Gender Lead at CGAP to explore the next chapter of women's financial inclusion. Women’s financial inclusion has made undeniable progress, but access alone has not delivered empowerment.  Drawing on global research and country experience, we unpack the systemic barriers that persist beneath the surface including gender norms embedded in institutions, f...

In this episode, we sit down with Rahma Seif, Producer at Mediae, to go behind the scenes of one of East Africa's most successful edutainment initiatives. Edutainment  (education through entertainment) is moving from experimental to essential in the financial inclusion sector, with evidence showing it achieves significantly better knowledge retention and behaviour change than traditional appr...

In Episode 4 of the series, we meet Solène Podevin Favre, Global Director of Insurance at VisionFund International. Solène shares VFI's experience designing and scaling inclusive insurance across Africa, Asia, and Latin America — covering what they've learned about co-creating trusted products with insurers and communities, and why partnership is key to building resilience for microfinan...

Remittances are a vital financial lifeline for millions of African families, helping to strengthen household resilience, advance financial inclusion and support local economic growth.  Across much of the continent, remittances have traditionally been received in cash, typically between US$200 and US$300 per transaction, often involving long travel times and the risks associated with carrying money...

In Episode 2, we meet Maria Mateo Iborra, Founder of IBISA . In this episode, Maria shares her entrepreneurial journey that led to founding IBISA, a company that leverages satellite technology to provide innovative insurance solutions for farmers. We discuss her passion for technology, the challenges of entering emerging markets, and her vision for making climate insurance mainstream.  Key Topics...

Welcome to Series 2! Happy New Year and welcome back to Financial Inclusion Unlocked! We're thrilled to kick off Series 2 with 10 powerful episodes releasing every Monday through the end of March. This season, we're diving deep into conversations with innovators, practitioners, and thought leaders who are working to unlock the potential of financial inclusion for all. In this opening epi...

Episode Sponsored by the Microinsurance Network In November 2025, we travelled to Luxembourg for the European Microfinance Award. The award is a prestigious prize that recognises outstanding initiatives advancing financial inclusion; in its 2025 edition, the theme focused on building resilience through inclusive insurance. The award is organised by InFiNe, the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP...

Following a fantastic and successful Series 1 of show , we're excited to bring you a special bonus episode, before the launch of Series 2 in January 2026. In May 2025, Jack travelled to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands—a stunning nation in the Pacific made up of nearly 1,000 islands. With a population of just over 800,000, the country faces unique geographic and infrastructure chal...

In this season finale, we take you to Uganda to explore how innovative fintech and agribusiness partnerships are driving a new era of agricultural finance for coffee growers. Emata is a Ugandan fintech (and licensed MFI) working in agriculture. They partner with agri companies to give smallholder farmers affordable, AI-powered digital loans. In this episode, Lilian Nassanga Musoke and Maren Hald B...

What happens when one of the world’s biggest insurers decides to design products for the population that’s too poor to be rich — and too rich to be poor? In this deeply insightful conversation, Garance Wattez-Richard shares the story behind the creation of AXA EssentiALL. From her first pitch to launching operations in 22 markets, Garance walks us through the business model, the value proposition,...

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of Africa's agricultural sector, producing 80% of the region's food supply. In this episode, we met with Tim Strong, Head of Agricultural Finance for Opportunity International to discuss how financial inclusion can be a vehicle for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve their goals.  Guest:  Timothy Strong , Head of Agricultural Finance...

The adoption of digital financial services, or DFS has created significant impact for underserved communities across the world. The United Nations states that inclusive digital financial services have allowed individuals to store and increase savings, cope with unexpected economic shocks, access social benefits more cheaply, and make investments in economic opportunities that can lead them out of...

When climate disasters strike, the world's most vulnerable communities often face devastating financial losses. In an era of increasing climate risks, traditional disaster response isn't enough. Communities need financial solutions that put them in control of their recovery. In Episode 6 of the Financial Inclusion Unlocked Podcast, we met with Nilesh Prakhash, Co-Director of the Global S...

The way that we view and define financial inclusion continues to evolve. Not only is financial inclusion measured on purely “access” but on how it can be a vehicle to accelerate the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this episode, we meet with Sophie Sirtaine, the Chief Executive Officer of CGAP, to discuss what the future of financial inclusion looks like. CGAP is an international partnershi...

From Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) to ROSCAs and Cuchubales, community-based financial groups have a long history of empowering individuals. Whether it’s for personal development or economic resilience, saving groups have been a cornerstone of financial inclusion for centuries.  In this episode, we met with Jeff Ashe, a financial inclusion expert, author and lecturer with over 45 y...