Financial Inclusion is rapidly moving up the policy agendas of many countries, particularly developing countries, reflected in the G20 Leaders creation of a Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) at the Seoul summit in October 2010. However, one of the obstacles to more effective and widespread financial inclusion is that international standards that guide the delivery of financial services were originally conceived for financially advanced developed countries. Yet the practical realities in developing countries, which are home to more than 90% of the world’s unbanked or financially excluded, are often quite different to those of their more financially sophisticated peers.
 
In addition, many developing countries are pioneering innovations in the field of financial inclusion, such as mobile banking, that are not always clearly addressed by the international standards setting bodies (SSBs). Financial inclusion’s focus on large numbers of low-income individuals, rather than large transactions that form the focus of international standard setting, also presents challenges to countries wanting to adhere to the standards and guidance of the SSBs.
 
The G20 Leaders’ Financial Inclusion Action Plan recognises these issues and encourages SSBs “to further explore…complementarities between financial inclusion and their own mandates”.
To this end, the GPFI commissioned this study to investigate the challenges and opportunities faced by five different developing countries in applying the standards set by five main SSBs to financial inclusion policies.