NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Digital financial services are now being touted as the answer to financial inclusion. But there are growing concerns that DFS primarily focuses almost exclusively on payments – not least of all because the mobile network operators are leading the charge, and banks typically remain laggards.

Having asked the poor to run the marathon out of poverty on one leg (microcredit), are we doing the same again by asking them to run the race with digital payments alone? We know that the poor need a range of financial services (savings, credit, insurance and payments) and thus real financial inclusion must necessarily provide all of these.

So how do we move DFS beyond payments? And are we doing enough?