Beyond Access: From Accounts to Opportunity

As per the Findex 2025, progress is real, yet 1.3 billion adults remain unserved, and millions of accounts lie dormant because formal finance still misses their needs. Only 42 % of LMIC adults paid digitally last year. South Asia’s share was just 15 % and in Africa 20 %. That leaves roughly 58 %, nearly six in ten shoppers still counting cash at the till. We must fix digital merchant payments to activate accounts.

Over half of the 1.3 billion who remain excluded, about 650 million people, reside in eight countries: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan. As the shift from cash to digital stalls, most shoppers still hand over bank-notes at the till. Global Findex 2025 shows that only 42 percent of adults in low- and middle-income countries paid merchants digitally in 2024, leaving almost six in ten transactions in cash. The picture is starker in South Asia (15 percent) and in Africa south of the Sahara (20 percent). On the farm, progress is even slower: only about one in four adults who sold crops or livestock received the payment into an account, keeping millions dependent on cash.

Regional snapshots: where momentum is building

The Alliance and its partners are translating data into action. A few highlights:

Africa: momentum and opportunities

Across Africa south of the Sahara - the epicentre of mobile money, there are over 1.1 billion registered mobile-money accounts; globally, only 514 million of 2.1 billion registered accounts are active on a 30-day basis (about one in four), underscoring the usage gap. Furthermore, the gender gap in account ownership remains 12 percentage points (pp) - three times the global average.

Decisive public-private leadership can speed inclusion for all Africans by 2030. In Ethiopia, with leadership of Central Bank Governor H.E. Mamo Mihretu’s to implement the country’s first National Digital Payments Strategy, added 110 million wallets in just three years. Within the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, where the Better Than Cash Alliance serves as an implementing partner - South Africa’s National Treasury is championing a shift from mere access to meaningful, everyday use of financial services. And, the choice of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government to adopt the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Protocol on Digital Trade, committing to accelerate the continent’s digital transformation and economic.

When implemented, all African Governments will have established shared standards, laws, regulations and policies required to enable inclusive digital trade by 2030. Among them, responsible digital payments and other key DPI like digital ID, data sharing to ensure inclusive digital trade from the foundations of the AfCFTA.

Asia: breadth of access, depth of inactivity

South Asia’s unfinished business is stark as it is home to the largest excluded population. Wages and bill payments are still mainly transacted in cash, with roughly four in five private sector wage recipients, are still paid in cash, not an account. In India, 14 % of adults don’t use their accounts, showing why we must focus on usage not just access. In Pakistan, we’re partnering with the State Bank of Pakistan to make digital merchant payments more affordable for every business. Through Pakistan’s Instant Payment System - RAAST - we’re advancing responsible pricing, such as subsidized, tiered or zero-fee structures, and convening a multi-stakeholder National Digital Payments Working Group to turn this multi-billion-dollar digital-commerce opportunity into reality. In Indonesia, also among the eight largest pockets of exclusion – Alliance research shows US$700 million still moves in cash through cocoa; we’re digitising it in partnerships with cocoa buyers and financial services providers. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s wage digitalization in the garment sector continues to show how digital wages can accelerate uptake at scale.

Latin America & the Caribbean: opportunity in convergence

Latin America nearly matches Africa’s mobile‑money penetration, with nearly 40 percent adults holding a mobile‑money account, but also home to one of the eight economies with the largest number of excluded adults, Mexico. The regional account‑ownership gap between higher‑and lower‑income adults is around 17 pp. Alliance members are responding on several fronts to ensure account holders have meaningful services to activate usage. For example, with CAF, we are embedding responsible digital payments into regional finance and digitalization strategies. Coffee farmers in Guatemala are now receiving digital payments to begin cutting cash costs by US $6.8 million a year, and we are partnering with the International Women’s Coffee Alliance to activate digital payments for women cooperatives.

The latest Findex flags three gaps- gender, income and usage - while applauding the spread of digital rails. It’s critical for governments to ensure the private sector pays wages digitally as evidence shows that 43% of account holders have opened one to receive a salary or government transfer, which is necessary to reach financial equality. Target, Gap and H&M have successfully mobilized their Tier‑1 suppliers to digitalize 85% of their wage payments, with a big majority of workers being women. When this impact is multiplied, we can improve macro indicators as UNDP research has shown that widespread digital payment usage could lift GDP growth by up to 33 percent and support 16-19 million small businesses to obtain credit.

Looking ahead to 2030

Women are 4 pp less likely than men to own an account (5 pp in LMICs); the gap is highest in MENA (15 pp) and Sub-Saharan Africa (12 pp); in South Asia, women account owners are 15 pp less likely to use digital payments; for merchant payments, the gender gap is 6 pp globally (13 pp in South Asia). Embedding sex-disaggregated targets in RAAST pricing reforms, merchant-service rules and wage-digitisation drives will turn inclusive payment rails into everyday economic power for women.

The rails are laid; the task now is traffic management. Governments can lead by mandating digital wage and procurement payments, regulators can enforce fair merchant‑service pricing, and providers can compete to make everyday transactions so convenient that people choose digital by default. The next five years will decide whether digital finance becomes universal.