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Part 1: Advancing financial inclusion for climate-displaced persons in Sub-Saharan Africa

Posted on by Melya Findi Astuti

A sudden flood, cyclone, typhoon, drought, earthquake, or tsunami can force you to leave your home in an instant. Your bank account becomes unreachable overnight. Your documents vanish, and your ability to earn an income disappears. This is the reality for Asha and the other 122 million people worldwide who have been forcibly displaced by mid-2025. In Tanzania alone, more than 46,000 people were displaced by climate-related disasters in 2024. These people are not only statistics. They are parents looking for ways to provide for their children, young people eager to continue their studies, and entrepreneurs trying to restart small businesses. Yet, they face barriers that lock them out of the very financial systems that could help them rebuild their lives. 

We often focus on food, shelter, and humanitarian aid. But financial access rarely makes the headlines, even though it may be one of the most powerful ways to restore dignity and hope. Displacement does not just strip away homes and belongings. It also erases critical connections to social and financial systems. Although Tanzania reports an 89% financial inclusion rate, this statistic conceals a harsh reality: Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are systematically excluded from the financial services that could help them rebuild their lives. 

 

The hidden cost of displacement 

Displacement disrupts lives in many ways. Beyond the loss of housing or safety, IDPs lose access to money and the ability to manage daily expenses. Without formal identification, they cannot open bank accounts, and without stable addresses, credit becomes unattainable. In such contexts, mobile money is often cited as a lifeline. Yet, even mobile solutions remain frustratingly out of reach for those displaced far from urban centers. 

A joint diagnostic study by MSC, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), and the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) on financial inclusion for climate-induced IDPs in Tanzania revealed the extent of these challenges: 

  • Documentation and regulation: Many displaced people, especially women, lack valid identification, which makes it difficult to meet bank requirements. Rules designed to prevent money laundering or terrorism financing often block them from opening accounts or accessing services. 
  • Physical access: Camps and settlements are usually far from bank branches, and digital connectivity is weak or unreliable. Mobile money agents, crucial access points in rural and peri-urban areas, are scarce, and travel distances are very long. Even where they exist, liquidity problems make transactions unreliable. 
  • Perceptions and product fit: Financial service providers (FSPs) often see displaced persons as high risk or low value. Products are not designed for irregular income or people without collateral. 
  • Lack of gender specificity: Women face compounded exclusion and are often less likely to possess formal identification, own mobile phones, or control household financial decisions. Displacement disproportionately affects women’s economic autonomy and places them at greater risk. Solutions for financial inclusion that overlook these gender-specific challenges risk the perpetuation of inequality rather than its resolution. Stakeholders should design inclusive financial services that recognize and address the unique hurdles women face in displacement scenarios. 
  • Trust: Without knowledge of consumer protections, recourse mechanisms, or even basic financial literacy, displaced people remain reluctant to engage with formal financial systems fully. More than one-third of IDPs from MSC’s diagnostic study had trust-related concerns. 

Consequently, financial services remain distant dreams rather than accessible realities. The impact is a cycle of dependency. Without access to safe savings, credit, or insurance, displaced people remain vulnerable to shocks and unable to rebuild. 

The difference financial inclusion makes for IDPs 

When climate disasters strike and IDPs lose their homes and their financial identities, access to financial services becomes more than just a matter of money. It represents choice, control, and the possibility to plan for a future beyond survival. Savings accounts can help families avoid harmful coping strategies, such as selling off essential assets during times of crisis. FSPs must effectively communicate how to maintain key physical and digital IDs and financial documents, and change their processes to allow account recovery after climate events. 

Credit enables small businesses to recover and expand. Small businesses create livelihood opportunities in both displaced and host communities. Insurance cushions against health shocks and climate-related risks, while digital payments reduce fraud and provide safer, faster ways for people to receive the funds they need. 

Yet, despite this potential, MSC’s work shows that financial services remain significantly out of reach, as 62% of the diagnostic study’s IDP respondents do not save, and 87% do not borrow formally. As a result, many turn to informal coping mechanisms. Hence, 36% of the study’s IDPs save, and 77% borrow informally, respectively. These include borrowing small amounts from neighbors or selling productive assets. Traditional banking models require collateral, steady income, or credit history requirements that displaced people, by their very circumstances, cannot meet. While informal stopgaps may provide short-term relief, they ultimately deepen vulnerability and erode resilience in the long run. 

This gap is where inclusive digital financial services can make a tangible difference. Mobile money accounts, agent networks, community savings groups, and flexible credit products customized to displaced populations can bypass traditional barriers. Partnerships between banks, FinTechs, humanitarian agencies, and regulators already show how displaced persons can be integrated into formal systems. This integration restores their livelihoods as well as their dignity. 

When customized appropriately, financial tools offer hope. In East Africa, the World Food Programme’s digital cash transfers reduced fraud and gave women greater control over household finances. Platforms, such as M-Pawa in Tanzania and Timiza in Kenya, show how simple, mobile-based savings and micro-credit services can provide access without collateral or credit histories. These platforms prove their effectiveness even in fragile contexts. Their benefits extend far beyond individuals like Asha, who achieve their dreams. When displaced people actively participate in local economies, they contribute to growth, reduce dependency on aid, and promote social cohesion. Host communities gain new customers, business partners, and entrepreneurs, transforming displaced populations from being seen as burdens into being recognized as vital economic actors. 

The relevant stakeholders must commit to these solutions and design with the intention to scale. They should build agent networks that reach camps and host communities. They need to offer products in local languages, which will ensure consumer protection, and coordinate across humanitarian and financial stakeholders. For Asha and countless other displaced persons, financial inclusion becomes more than an economic tool. It charts the pathway to resilience, dignity, and shared prosperity.  

Way forward 

Displacement robs people of more than just homes. It strips away financial identity and independence. Despite Tanzania’s high financial inclusion rate, internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain mainly excluded, which leaves them trapped in cycles of vulnerability. We need to work toward solutions that close the gaps in basic access and address the realities of displaced communities effectively. 

In Part 2, we will explore how financial inclusion can empower IDPs through practical strategies, collaborative efforts between governments, financial service providers (FSPs), NGOs, and gender-sensitive approaches. We can transform financial systems into lifelines and help displaced communities move from survival to self-reliance. This shift will restore dignity, rebuild opportunities, and enable long-term resilience. 

Bangladesh’s bureau reform turns repayment history into portable assets

Posted on by Adityaraj

For years, millions of borrowers in Bangladesh have remained invisible to the formal financial system. These borrowers include microfinance clients, informal workers, and small business owners. Their creditworthiness, demonstrated through consistent repayment in non-bank systems, has failed to earn formal recognition. This invisibility has limited opportunities for both borrowers who seek capital and lenders who look for reliable clients.

Yet, we may see an inflection point emerge in Bangladesh’s financial landscape, with Banks transitioning from the single-bureau model of the Bangladesh Bank’s Credit Information Bureau (CIB) to a multi-bureau framework. The Bangladesh Bank has issued Letters of Intent (LoIs) to Creditinfobd, TransUnion, bKash Credit, First National Credit, and City Credit, but TransUnion and bKash have chosen to form a joint venture. As a result, four private credit bureaus, namely, Creditinfo BD, the TransUnion–bKash joint entity, First National Credit, and City Credit, are now set to enter the market as CIBs.

This shift promises to democratize credit data and reorient credit assessment away from collateral and institutional ties toward actual repayment behavior. In this first part of this blog series, we examine the ecosystem-wide implications of this reform for financial service providers (FSPs), who will be instrumental in determining its success.

The problem: The CIB’s limited scope

Bangladesh’s credit information system has long relied on the Bangladesh Bank’s CIB, which provides exposure data to banks and nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs). Yet, the CIB’s coverage remains fundamentally constrained, which leaves critical segments of the economy undocumented and underserved.

Some of the data currently captured by the CIB are listed in the table below:

Source: Bangladesh Bank 

Crucially, systems, such as microfinance, cooperative lending, merchant credit, and digital credit, remain largely outside the CIB’s scope. As a result, many economically active borrowers, even those with strong repayment histories in these non-bank systems, are reduced to thin-file or no-file clients in the formal system, which renders them functionally invisible to traditional lenders.

The multi-bureau operational model as an opportunity

The four licensed private credit bureaus will fundamentally reshape access to financial inclusion by using alternative data from telecoms, utilities, and retail businesses to generate comprehensive credit scores for individuals with thin files or who are unbanked.

Under this new model, data flows are fundamentally restructured:

Proposed operational model of the new private credit bureau framework. Source: Bangladesh Bank’s “Guidelines on Licensing, Operation and Regulation of Credit Bureau” 

The Bangladesh Bank will supervise the bureaus under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2024. This new approach enables the bureaus to incorporate alternative data, such as spending patterns and low-value transactions, to build credit profiles for previously excluded segments. This structural shift introduces a critical innovation of portable credit history, which in turn supports credit ratings and improves borrowers’ ability to negotiate fairer terms.

For the first time, borrowers can accumulate “reputation collateral” that transcends individual institutions. A microfinance client’s consistent repayments, a merchant’s reliable utility payments, or a gig worker’s transaction patterns become transferable assets. This portability enables borrowers to use their financial behavior to access better credit terms, lower interest rates, and expanded financial opportunities across the formal sector.

The core challenge: foundation before innovation

Alternative data can enhance credit scoring only once comprehensive, real-time reporting of traditional credit data is completed from all formal lenders, such as banks, NBFIs, MFIs, and cooperatives. At present, Bangladesh’s credit information infrastructure suffers from critical structural weaknesses. Data updates lag by weeks or months, submissions remain incomplete across institutions, and reporting formats lack standardization. Sophisticated alternative data models built on this fragmented foundation risk the amplification of existing gaps rather than their closure.

Bangladesh must first ensure full-file, frequent, and standardized reporting across all lender types to make bureau scoring robust, supported by MIS upgrades, data-quality checks, and uniform submission protocols. Only after the core architecture is reliable can transaction-level alternative data from platforms, such as bKash, meaningfully enrich bureau models.

The shift to a multi-bureau framework represents a defining moment for Bangladesh’s financial sector. Done right, it will establish “reputation collateral” for millions of potential clients who remain invisible to traditional credit assessment, unlock new market opportunities, and drive financial inclusion at scale.

The success of this transformation to a multi-bureau framework rests squarely with FSPs. Without full participation from banks, NBFIs, MFIs, and digital lenders and without their commitment to rigorous data quality standards, the system cannot fulfill its promise. The data practices FSPs adopt today will determine whether this reform expands market access or merely redistributes existing constraints tomorrow.

This brings us to the question: How can global development partners, such as the World Bank and development finance institutions, strengthen the regulatory framework and enable this inclusive multi-bureau transition?

In Part 2 of this series, we will examine the crucial role of development partners, regulatory framework enhancements, and oversight mechanisms required to ensure the reform effectively drives upward mobility for all segments of the financial ecosystem.

 

Introducing the alliance for inclusive AI: an open global coalition to build AI that serves billions, not just the few

Posted on by harshita

Washington DC / London / Nairobi / New Delhi / Singapore — 8 December 2025

Today, BFA Global, Caribou, and MSC—organizations whose work spans more than 150 countries— launch Alliance for Inclusive AI, an open coalition committed to ensuring that the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) expands opportunity. By 2030, the Alliance aims to deliver responsible, practical AI solutions to 100 million people and mobilize US$100 million in blended finance.

AI is set to reshape economies and public systems, yet new divisions are emerging: between countries that can afford the necessary technology and those that cannot; between enterprises able to adopt AI tools and those left out; and between people who can access these tools and those who cannot. Without leadership from emerging markets, AI will be built on assumptions that fail to reflect how most of the world actually lives and works.

Ajay Banga, World Bank Group President, cautioned that “Big AI will create a bigger disparity between the developed world and the developing world at the start. On the other hand, ‘small AI’ – local models delivered on local devices – is going to be amazingly productive.”

The Alliance is an open, collaborative, practitioner-led effort to bring inclusive AI into the workflows of financial inclusion, agriculture, climate resilience, and digital public services across the Global South.

Prateek Shrivastava, MD of BFA Global, said: “Only by joining forces to mobilize resources can we bring meaningful AI infrastructure and solutions to hundreds of millions of people globally.”

Jessica Osborn, CEO of Caribou, said: “AI will reshape how people earn, learn, and access services. It will only deliver real impact when marginalized communities shape it. This Alliance ensures local actors build and use AI in ways that reflect their realities.”

Working at the intersection of global development and AI innovation, the Alliance’s work is organized around six pillars:

  1. Create foundational AI infrastructure tailored to emerging markets.
  2. Deliver practical, small-AI solutions that cater to the needs of the underserved.
  3. Partner with universities to develop local talent for responsible AI.
  4. Develop operational tools that work in low-resource, low-connectivity environments.
  5. Support governments, DFIs, regulators, and regional bodies to design and implement inclusive AI strategies.
  6. Create shared repositories of datasets, case studies, and toolkits.

Technology providers, DFIs, investors, governments, research institutions, and civil society organizations are invited to join.

Graham Wright, Co-Chair and GMD, MSC, warned: “Countries that lack digital infrastructure, skilled workforces, and supportive policy frameworks may find themselves further marginalized.”

BFA Global is a global impact innovation firm that combines research, advisory, venture building, and investment expertise to build a more inclusive, equitable, and resilient future for underserved people and the planet. We partner with leading public, private, and philanthropic organizations to catalyze innovation ecosystems for impact across emerging markets.

Caribou is a global digital development consultancy that helps foundations, companies, and governments design and deliver responsible, inclusive digital systems. With expertise in data governance, digital identity, youth employment, and responsible technology, Caribou strengthens the policies, programs, and ecosystems that shape equitable digital futures.

MSC is a global inclusion consulting firm that works with governments, providers, and innovators to enable social, financial, and economic inclusion for everyone in the digital age. Its local teams in 70+ countries bring practical expertise across finance, technology, agriculture, and social protection. We help clients seize the digital opportunity, address the mass market, and future-proof operations.

Media Contact
Parul Seth
parul@microsave.net

This article was also published on ANI, The Wire and Tribune India.

This press release was published across 105 media websites.

 

 

Agent lifecycle playbook

Posted on by Adityaraj

“Agent Lifecycle Playbook” is a comprehensive guide to ensure high-performing, resilient, and inclusive agent networks. This playbook is based on global insights, which outline effective practices across the full agent lifecycle. These include recruitment, onboarding agents, strengthening capability, liquidity, safety, and long-term viability. This playbook integrates a strong gender lens that offers strategies to support and scale women agents. It equips providers, policymakers, and ecosystem actors with actionable tools to enhance agent productivity and improve last-mile financial service delivery. 

This playbook is developed as part of the project, “Scaling agent viability and quality,” funded by the Gates Foundation from 2023 to 2025. 

When Risk Models Fail the Vulnerable: A Case for Climate-Responsive Finance

Posted on by Adityaraj

Climate change is reshaping financial risk, yet conventional credit models too often penalize the very populations most in need of support. Farmers, small businesses, and low-income households in climate-vulnerable regions face higher costs, stricter terms, or outright exclusion — even when they invest in adaptation.

This article makes the case for climate-responsive finance with retooling risk models; scaling adaptive products; and aligning regulators, financial institutions, and development partners to build resilience. Ultimately, financing resilience is not just a social good — it is the strongest safeguard for the financial systems themselves.

Increasing Global Warming Means Increasing Financial Risk

Our world is on track for a 2.7°C rise by 2100. Over the past 50 years, the planet has faced an average of one disaster every day or two, linked to weather, climate, or water hazards, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The number of such events has increased fivefold over this period, with 11,778 disasters recorded between 1970 and 2021. The economic toll has also mounted — with estimated losses of USD 4.3 trillion suffered over this period, with costs rising each decade.

The World Bank’s Findex 2025 report confirms what we at MSC have witnessed firsthand: Climate shocks have become routine for low-income communities. In low-income countries, 35% of adults reported experiencing a natural disaster or weather shock in the last three years. Two-thirds lost income or assets, and the poorest 40% were one-third more likely to be affected than others.

The cost of climate change is very much a financial one, as the developing countries, already vulnerable, are staring down future losses of USD 1–1.8 trillion annually by 2050 due to escalating physical climate risks.

As economies face the strain, financial institutions — especially banks — face it too. The growing physical risks impair the solvency of borrowers and reduce the value of collateral, increase default correlations, and create more systemic credit risk. To manage this risk, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) suggests incorporating physical climate risks into banks’ credit risk models. This integration of physical climate risks into credit risk frameworks is designed to improve how banks evaluate loan performance in climate-affected geographies and sectors, and thereby reduce their exposure to underpriced climate risk.

But there is a catch. Existing models classify vulnerable borrowers — farmers, small firms, informal workers, low-income households — as inherently riskier. If adopted blindly, this suggestion from BIS could entrench this exclusion.

Banks respond to this classification with higher rates, tougher covenants, or outright loan denial, often ignoring borrowers’ adaptation efforts. Vulnerable populations are then locked in cycles of using high-cost informal debt to finance recovery, having insufficient resources to further adapt, and stagnation.  This happens because high interest rates trap them in debt cycles, diverting income from productive uses. With no savings or credit buffers, they remain unable to invest in adaptation or upward mobility, perpetuating stagnation. At the macroeconomic level, this not only hurts climate adaptation but also a country’s economic growth.

Financial Products Need to Evolve to Take Account of Adaptation

Financial institutions often do not have climate-change-responsive products for climate vulnerable populations. For many customers, climate change has become a barrier to economic growth, as financial institutions often avoid serving them or lack appropriate products tailored to their needs. We found evidence of this in Bangladesh, where customer savings withdrawal increased and credit decreased following climate events.

This means that climate-vulnerable customers, often least responsible for climate change, face a triple financial hit:

  1. Losses from climate events;
  2. Limited access to financial services or access at higher costs (e.g., higher insurance premiums or underinsurance); and
  3. At a macroeconomic level, public bailouts of distressed financial institutions placing an unnecessary burden on taxpayers and eroding customer trust in the formal financial system.

Many borrowers acknowledge their climate risks and even invest in resilience measures such as building flood defenses, raising homesteads and vegetable plots, or responding to drought with boreholes and water tanks. Yet, when they approach financial institutions, either for working capital after making such investments, or for credit to finance these resilience measures in the first place, they often face higher interest rates or outright refusals, since financial institutions rarely see such activities as directly income-generating.

In contrast, “climate-safe” borrowers, those in resilient geographies or with access to existing adaptive infrastructure, may enjoy lower rates, preferential loan terms, and access to green finance.

Over time, this bifurcation of risk-based lending will concentrate capital in resilient geographies and/or among resilient borrowers while starving high-risk areas of the financial resources needed to adapt. If credit risk models only account for climate risks without requiring a plan to address borrowers’ vulnerabilities or considering their adaptation plans, it will worsen their challenges. This underscores the urgent need for adaptive, flexible financial products that (i) respond to shocks, and (ii) balance the risk protection of both borrowers and lenders with affordable credit.

From Risk Avoidance to Resilience Building

A pivot from exclusionary risk models to financing adaptive measures and supporting high-risk borrowers, rather than sidelining them, will help reduce the huge, estimated, financial impact. For example, the U.K.’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries project Global GDP losses of up to 50% between 2070 and 2090. Practical tools like the Climate Vulnerability Index can help unlock this capital, as can integrating climate risks into lifetime customer value, credit scores, and loan appraisals. Financial institutions should use climate risk models not just to redirect capital but to segment customers more effectively. With geolocation and sectoral data, banks can target vulnerable groups, farmers, small firms, and urban informal workers; and offer financial products that adjust to their circumstances, including flexible repayment schedules, weather-indexed credit, and microinsurance.

To better serve low-income communities, lenders can combine community-based lending models with digital data (such as mobile payments and satellite imagery) to assess creditworthiness beyond collateral. Public guarantees and blended finance can lower risk and attract private capital. Climate-smart credit lines, linked to adaptation actions (like water harvesting or crop diversification), can incentivize resilience. For this, institutions do not need to overhaul their product suites. Many providers can strengthen climate relevance simply by refining how existing products are positioned, structured, and supported. For instance, MSC’s 3R Strategy offers one practical pathway to do this. Institutions can repurpose existing products toward climate use cases; rejig them with flexible, season-aligned structures and early-warning protocols; and reinvent purpose-built offerings like disaster loans, emergency savings, and climate-smart agriculture loans. Finally, embedding financial literacy and insurance bundling within such products ensures sustainability and long-term inclusion.

This shift can be accelerated through blended finance and carbon finance, both critical tools to strengthen climate resilience, which are undergoing reform to improve how they perform. Blended finance, which uses a mix of public and private financing, while designed to de-risk climate investments, has been hampered by inefficiencies in multilateral climate funds. Carbon finance — instruments that channel funds toward emission reduction or carbon offset projects — was meant to add a revenue stream, but lost credibility after weak standards led to a race to the bottom, and is now being restructured to restore trust and effectiveness. Both mechanisms, despite their current deficiencies, hold significant potential if their governance frameworks, use cases, and applicability are diversified to better align with local contexts, emerging technologies, and adaptive financing models.

Alongside these, regulators can leverage RegTech (regulatory technology) to help financial institutions meet climate-related regulatory requirements efficiently, and SupTech (supervisory technology) to harness data and analytics for early warning, monitoring, and supervision of climate risks. Together, these tools enable the integration of borrower-level climate data into early warning systems, detecting emerging distress early, and ensuring lending frameworks foster equitable and resilient outcomes.

Parting Thoughts

Financing low-income communities and their adaptation requires not just loans based on a better understanding of their characteristics and needs; it also involves changes in other parts of the financial system. Scaling resilience requires guarantee funds, supportive regulation, and post-disaster mechanisms like moratoriums or loan restructuring. A promising innovation is the use of pre-approved disaster loans, released automatically in anticipation of extreme events, triggered by predictive models such as Google Flood Hub.

Governments, development partners, climate scientists, and civil society must coordinate to deliver affordable credit, insurance, and advisory services for low-income communities, reinforced by digital tools, capacity building, and policy incentives. In the end, though, customer resilience is the strongest safeguard for financial systems.

Akhand Jyoti Tiwari is a Senior Partner at MSC, with two decades of experience at the intersection of strategy, innovation, climate action, and inclusive development. His leadership has enabled MSC to forge high-impact partnerships, unlock new business opportunities, and expand its footprint across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. A trusted advisor to governments, development partners, and private sector leaders, Akhand guides organizations in navigating complex transitions toward sustainability, inclusion, and resilience.

Ayushi Misra is a Sector Lead at MSC and manages work on financial policy, regulation, and inclusive service delivery. She focuses on advancing financial inclusion for low- and middle-income segments through inclusive product and policy design, impact investing, SME finance, and financial sector strategy. Ayushi has contributed to developing climate lending frameworks, sustainable credit lines, and risk-sharing mechanisms for green and inclusive growth.

This was first published on GARP on November 27, 2025.

 

How a government scheme turned gender intelligence into assets

Posted on by Adityaraj

India stands at a pivotal moment in its development journey, with the largest-ever cohort of educated, digitally savvy, and financially aware young women — many single, ambitious, and ready to lead. For the first time, they’re entering the economy with real access to banking and digital tools. But access alone isn’t autonomy. True empowerment begins when financial inclusion evolves into asset ownership, enabling women to shape their futures and achieve financial independence.

This shift from access to ownership is still a work in progress — but the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY), launched in 2015, offers valuable lessons in how gender-intelligent design can accelerate asset creation, drive behavioural change, and scale inclusion.

  • Preventive inclusion pays dividends: Initiating girls’ financial inclusion during childhood helps preempt structural barriers for women and reduces the long-term costs of corrective policy interventions.
  • Design drives behaviour: Gender-intelligent products can reshape household saving patterns, directing resources towards girls and fostering sustained financial commitment to their futures.
  • Scalability within existing systems: SSY shows that gender-intelligent design is both feasible and scalable within mainstream institutions, creating opportunities to better serve underserved women.

While most policies for women begin in adulthood, like credit, cash transfers, or pensions, meaningful inclusion requires early lifecycle intervention. Early interventions allow time for accumulation and the magic of compounding to kick in, not just in numbers but also in terms of financial behaviour change.

SSY exemplifies a successful early lifecycle intervention. Accounts are opened for girls aged 0–10, with deposits continuing through adolescence (10–18) and maturing in early adulthood (18–25), aligning with education and marriage milestones. Partial withdrawals at 18 can fund higher education, while balances left beyond 21 continue earning interest. Since its introduction, the returns have consistently exceeded 7.6%, making it an attractive long-term savings option for parents. SSY has grown from 42 lakh accounts and ₹123 crore in deposits in 2014–15 to 3.5 crore accounts and over ₹3 lakh crore in 2024–25 with the national average deposit per account at ₹63,402. To put that in perspective, this corpus rivals the annual budgets of several Indian states.

Regional studies show that SSY has improved education equity and financial security for girls; and, parents’ preparedness for future needs. It changed aspirations from marriage-focused saving to investing in higher education. This behavioural shift mirrors global child-focused financial products like Singapore’s Child Development Account and UK’s Junior ISA. However, SSY is among the few globally to direct financial assets explicitly in the name of girls, correcting a historic gender gap in asset ownership.

The success of SSY also hinges on institutional participation. Post offices and banks have played a pivotal role in scaling the scheme and building trust. This is critical in a country like India, where gaps in women’s financial inclusion and asset ownership are particularly pronounced, underlining the need for banks to deploy and scale more gender intelligent products. Women remain the most unbanked and underbanked segment in India. IFC estimates credit demand among women-owned very small enterprises alone is ₹83,600 crore (approx. $11.4 billion). Demand for savings, investment, insurance, and pension products also remains underserved. SSY has helped post offices and banks attract substantial deposits for the government treasury, while earning commissions and making it a win-win for both financial institutions and women.

Post Offices manage about 68% of all 3.07 crore SSY accounts, thus leveraging their historic trust and large network. This demonstrates that gender-intelligent design can scale through established financial channels, integrating equity-oriented products into mainstream banking without need for parallel structures.

As SSY approaches its tenth anniversary, it presents a pivotal moment to expand its reach in lower participation states and evolve to meet the financial aspirations of today’s families. Enhancing the scheme by raising the investment cap and extending the 15-year deposit window can further strengthen its returns and long-term impact.

SSY is more than a savings scheme, it’s a blueprint for inclusive growth. It shows that policy can shift household behaviour. The next challenge is for financial institutions to sustain this momentum by creating gender-intelligent products that build trust, deliver long-term value, and make inclusion measurable and accountable for girls.

For policymakers, this means embedding gender intelligence into every layer of financial inclusion. For markets, it means women as mainstream economic drivers and designing solutions that truly serve their financial needs.

SSY 2.0 can continue to be a powerful instrument for gender intelligent financial inclusion transforming early savings into lifelong security for millions of girls.

This was first published on Hindustan Times on Nov 28, 2025.