Financial Inclusion

Overview

Roughly 2 billion individuals and tens of millions of enterprises around the world lack access to basic financial services. For the 50% of poor households who are “unbanked,” this represents an incredible economic barrier that prevents them from accessing the credit, savings and insurance services essential to the well-being of their families and businesses. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who struggle to secure capital, this creates critical obstacles to their own growth, as well as the economic and employment potential they represent.

The global community is increasingly aware of the critical role financial inclusion plays in reducing poverty, promoting economic prosperity and catalyzing enterprise, and has made notable strides in promoting access to finance around the world. However, large scale innovation is still needed to ensure products, services and capital are available, accessible and appropriate to the needs of underrepresented individuals, enterprises and communities.

The Challenge

The challenge for this track is to propose novel products, services, tools or mechanisms that either address unmet needs of the financially underserved, or help extend existing services to populations at the unbanked “last mile.”

The challenge for this track is to propose novel products, services, tools or mechanisms that either address unmet needs of the financially underserved, or help extend existing services to populations at the unbanked “last mile.”

Past Winners and Examples

Examples of proposals include (but are not limited to):

  • Programs to support SMEs to access or manage capital
  • Innovative credit or savings products/services for smallholder farmers
  • Mobile applications that increase access to financial services for low-income populations
  • Financial literacy programming for underserved communities
  • Measurement tools to track and monitor financial inclusion
  • Infrastructure (physical or electronic) that promotes widespread accessibility
Homeslice, 2017
NFT Inclusion Project, 2022
Sotira, 2022
SocialForce, 2016

Homeslice

Team Members:

Anna Roumiantseva, Anne Ready, PJ O’Neil

School:

UC Berkeley

Housing has gotten unaffordable across much of the US. With home prices having gone from 2X to 4X the median family income over the past 40 years, 53-77% of the population can’t afford to buy today in metro areas across the country. This means that they are forced to rent for years on end instead of building their assets, perpetuating the cycle of being locked out of the market. HomeSlice is putting home ownership within reach for people who can’t afford to own today by making it easy to buy homes in groups. By removing the current barriers to fractional ownership – from the creation of co-owner agreements to the elimination of liability for co-owner default – it is making shared home ownership a viable and attractive option for millions of Americans. Its mission is to democratize home ownership.

SocialForce

Team Members:

 Susanne Schöneberg, Denisse Halm, Joh Schöneberg, Mitul Bhat, Reneé Selanders, Vaisakh Shankar, Sid Ghosh

School:

UC Berkeley

SocialForce is an impact management platform that leverages the core business competencies available locally to meet the needs of a community in a strategic and sustainable way. SocialForce is based on the premise that community-grounded organizations and their active members understand the needs of their communities best, but lack the ability to harvest the resources necessary to execute projects to address those needs.