Integrating poor people in the financial system: The Financial Inclusion – A world overview

“Integrating poor people along with all the marginalized groups in the financial system” is one of the indicators developed by the school of “sustainable development” to insure more human, social and democratic dimensions for the economic development.

In a presentation delivered on Wed. 21Feb, 2019, Professor Tarek El Domyaty and his co-authors shed light on the concept of “financial inclusion” that refers to that process that ensures ease of access, availability, and usage of financial services for all members of society”. The presentation provided an overview on the world countries’ performance on the scale of financial inclusion, underlying the outstanding breakthrough recently achieved in that respect by some developing countries like India and Kenya. The presentation also underlined the fact that Egypt is still in need of taking many serious steps to improve its position on that scale which will definitely support its standing on the overall development scale.

A very rich discussion followed the presentation which was attended by most of the staff members of the School of Business. Some of the contributors called the attention to the prerequisites necessary to achieve success in“ financial inclusion” like offering more encouraging financial policies and tools besides overcoming the socio-cultural barriers. The debate also highlighted the recent initiatives and steps taken by the Egyptian government that put Financial inclusion as one of the goals as well as an integral part of the Egyptian Economic Reform Program.