Financial Inclusion on Business Runways (FIBR)

By reframing digital and financial inclusion through platforms, FIBR developed two fundamental insights that are relevant to financial inclusion and livelihoods:

1. Platforms have “pull”. ​Platforms are digital onboarding new users and accelerating their digital and financial inclusion. Users have incentives to be digital consumers and along the way, discover income-generating opportunities as producers by selling products and services. In turn, platforms use merchant data to extend much-needed working capital to growing businesses, in the form of credit, loans, as well as asset-building and smoothing tools such as savings and insurance.
2. In sub-Saharan Africa, where youth unemployment exceeds 30% and the economy is largely informal (85%), ​digital commerce is creating pathways to decent livelihoods and the formal economy. ​The iWorker phenomenon, workers who earn their living on digital platforms, is on the rise. Platform-based work can benefit youth workers not only by providing a livelihood in the absence of formal jobs, but by unlocking productive assets and financing that are essential to start and grow a business. Platforms also provide a “digital CV”, increased productivity and efficiency, and wraparound services of training and professionalization that enable younger workers to develop and succeed.

LEARN MORE ABOUT FIBR’S MSME WORK