Designing for Financial Inclusion

A Bank of Canada staff paper gives useful insight into financial exclusion. It does this in the context of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), but the findings have broad relevance to payments generally ¹.

The paper describes our current use of data, digital platforms and advanced analytics as having created a digital age. For payments to be inclusive, issues around financial inclusion, digital inclusion and accessibility need to be understood and addressed. Given that the design of CBDCs frequently refers to a CBDC as being a universal payment method, all solutions to all three issues need to be designed in.

Financial inclusion is more than just having a bank account and access to the internet. Equally, making a payment is not just a financial interaction, it is also a social interaction.