May 6, 2025
About a quarter of the world's adults lack access to affordable, quality financial services - but digital disruption is helping bring them into the formal financial system. Financial inclusion allows individuals to save and invest, while also supporting entrepreneurship and business growth. And for investors, these developments are opening the door to varied investment opportunities among banks and nontraditional financial services firms.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- By lowering costs and generating new business opportunities, digital innovations are helping make financial services more accessible to the underserved population.
- Digital connectivity helps nontraditional financial services gain traction in emerging markets (EM).
- In developed markets (DM), banks and financial technology companies extend services to the unbanked and underbanked populations in varied ways.
- Small business lending, once considered one of banking's more challenging business lines, is seeing increased competition from digital disruptors.
Financial industry changes you can bank on?
Our investment professionals explore how digital innovation is enabling financial inclusion and creating long-term investment opportunities.
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Anthony Campagna is an ESG analyst at Capital Group. He has 20 years of industry experience (as of 12/31/2024). He holds a bachelor's degree in environmental & civil engineering with a minor in finance from Northeastern University.

David Sneyd is an ESG analyst at Capital Group. He has 17 years of industry experience (as of 12/31/2024). He holds a master's degree in philosophy and public policy from the London School of Economics and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Sussex.