Increased digital payments will foster financial empowerment among unbanked

by: Brian Day

Digital payments could help billions of unbanked people achieve financial inclusion.
Specifically, World Bank reports mobile money and electronic transfers could bring financial services to more than 2 billion marginalized people worldwide.

The new World Bank Development Research Group report, “The Opportunities of Digitizing Payments,” highlights how the digitation of payments, as well as transfers and remittances in developing countries, could foster broad economic growth and individual financial empowerment.

As we continue to pursue mobile and other digital payments in the U.S., it is important to also understand how mobile payments are a growing trend in today’s global economy.

However, governments in emerging and developing nations that rely on a cash-only economy have yet to take full advantage of these types of payments, despite the benefits. Regarding these benefits, the report concludes: “Not only are digital payments more efficient than cash payments, but their broader adoption also can reduce rates of corruption and violent crime, reduce the cost of government wage and social transfer payments, offer new pathways into the financial system for the disadvantaged, and, importantly, contribute to the ongoing objective of women’s economic empowerment.”

 

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