Building Inclusive
Financial Systems

GIIFF started with a question that kept coming up again and again: if more people are entering the financial system, why are so many still being left behind?

After European Microfinance Week in 2019, it became even clearer that access was only part of the story. Having an account does not always mean having access to credit, feeling safe, building resilience, growing a business, or trusting the financial system.

By 2022, that question had grown into a wider conversation with experts, practitioners, women’s networks, and financial inclusion leaders from different markets. We were hearing the same thing in different ways: people were being counted as included, but many were still not getting the outcomes they needed.

Today, 79% of adults globally have a financial account, yet 1.3 billion adults are still outside the formal financial system. And even among those who are included, many continue to face barriers to credit, capital, safe digital finance, and meaningful use of financial services.

That is why GIIFF was created.

We bring together experience in financial inclusion, women’s economic security, financial safety, access to capital, consumer protection, digital finance, and systems change. We work with financial institutions to understand what is not working, learn from what is working, and build practical solutions that can be tested, improved, and scaled.

For us, financial inclusion is not just about access. It is about whether people can actually use financial services with confidence, stay safe, access capital, build resilience, and create a better financial future.