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Asia-PacificJanuary 25 2016

What all regulators must do to promote financial inclusion

The annual Microscope global report on financial inclusion provides a kind of open-source regulation for fostering the right environment to give everyone access to banking and credit services, wherever they are, writes Michael Schlein, president and chief executive of Accion. 
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Fostering financial inclusion depends on many factors, and one of the most important is effective regulation. Policy-makers have an outsize influence on whether the 2 billion people around the world who lack access to basic financial services can finally join the world’s economy. Helping them make the best possible decisions is one of the quickest routes to full financial inclusion.

The microfinance organisation Accion has sponsored a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit entitled Global Microscope 2015: The Enabling Environment for Financial Inclusion, which we believe can expedite and positively influence supportive regulatory steps. The Microscope report evaluates 55 countries’ policies, regulations and environments for financial inclusion. It identifies how governments promote financial inclusion – or impede it. In this one place every year, the regulatory environment is made completely transparent and comparisons are made readily. This creates healthy competition among top regulators to create the best regulatory environment possible.

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