**OD-58 - Beyond Access: Co-Designing Digital Finance for Women and Older Adults in Latin America. — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/beyond-access-digital-finance-women-older-adults/ Exploring meaningful digital financial inclusion for women and older adults in Latin America beyond mere access. ## Key Takeaways - Financial inclusion must go beyond access to ensure meaningful and safe use that enhances financial well-being. - Digital financial services can both remove and create barriers, requiring careful design to be truly inclusive. - Women and older adults have heterogeneous financial needs and experiences that must be considered in service design. - Trust, usability, and recovery mechanisms are crucial for effective digital financial inclusion. - Evaluating inclusion by average metrics risks overlooking vulnerable populations and perpetuating exclusion. ## What the video covers - Financial inclusion is more than access; it requires meaningful, safe, autonomous use that improves financial well-being. - Access indicators like account ownership or mobile payments don't capture the full experience or outcomes for users. - Digital finance can reduce costs and barriers but may introduce new challenges like complex authentication and trust issues. - Women and older adults have diverse financial experiences influenced by factors like location, digital literacy, and income stability. - Financial inclusion should be evaluated as a progression: access, meaningful use, safety and trust, resilience, and well-being. - National averages can mask disparities and hide the diversity of user experiences behind the data. - Digital services must be designed to recognize diversity and avoid unintentionally excluding certain groups. - Financial resilience and autonomy are key goals, not just increasing the number of users connected to financial systems. - Complex security measures, while necessary, can exclude legitimate users, especially older adults. - Inclusive innovation requires more than technical deployment; it demands understanding and addressing user needs. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction and framing the question of financial inclusion 2. 02:27 Challenges of meaningful use, trust, and recovery 3. 04:37 Limitations of traditional financial inclusion indicators 4. 06:39 Digital finance: opportunities and new barriers 5. 08:59 Diversity of financial experiences among women and older adults 6. 15:20 Case studies and practical examples 7. 21:47 Security challenges and trust in digital finance 8. 29:12 Evaluating innovation through financial well-being and inclusion Answers ## Questions about this video What is the main argument about financial inclusion in this video? The main argument is that financial inclusion should move beyond simply providing access to financial services and focus on meaningful, safe, and autonomous use that improves financial well-being. Why are women and older adults specifically highlighted in the discussion? Women and older adults have diverse financial experiences influenced by factors like digital literacy, income stability, and connectivity, which means financial services must be designed to address their unique needs and challenges. How does digital finance both help and hinder financial inclusion? Digital finance can reduce transaction costs and physical barriers but may introduce new challenges such as complex authentication processes, trust issues, and usability problems that can exclude some users. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:03 Speaker A Hello, and thank you for joining me during Financial Inclusion Week. I'm Nitaso from the School of Economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. During the next 30 minutes, I would like to invite you to examine a question that sounds simple but becomes increasingly complex. Once we look closely at how people actually experience financial services, we often celebrate innovation because it increases access. But access to what, under what conditions, and with what consequences? 00:24 Speaker A increasingly complex. Once we look closely at how people actually experience financial services, we often celebrate innovation because it increases access but access to what under what conditions and with what consequences. 00:43 Speaker A My argument today is that the next frontier of financial inclusion is not simply connecting more people to finance. It is the silent financial systems that people can use meaningfully, safely, autonomously, and ultimately in ways that improve their financial wellbeing. 01:07 Speaker A And this distinction begins with a very basic question. Imagine two people. One is a woman who received payments through her mobile phone. The other is an older adult whose pension is deposited directly into a bank account. 01:29 Speaker A And this distinction begins with a very basic question. Imagine two people. One is a woman who receives payments through her mobile phone. The other is an older adult whose pension is deposited directly into a bank account. 01:43 Speaker A That is the question behind this session. Financial inclusion begins with access, but it doesn't end there. 01:58 Speaker A Both have an account. Both have access to a smartphone. Both may appear in national statistics as financially included. What are they? 02:27 Speaker A people actually use them? Can they understand it? Do they trust them? Can they recover when something goes wrong? 02:35 Speaker A That is the question behind this session. Financial inclusion begins with access, but it doesn't end there. 03:01 Speaker A financial resilience and finally financial well. So through this pres presentation we will I will use when basing proposition this also explain the analytical approach I'm taking for many years progress in financial inclusion was understandably measured through indicators such as bank account 03:33 Speaker A Financial life is not made of one account or one transaction. People need to make payments, save, borrow, protect themselves against risk, and when circumstances permit, invest and accumulate assets. Even access to those services is only one part of the story. Can people actually use them? Can they understand them? Do they trust them? Can they recover when something goes wrong? 03:49 Speaker A This indicators are essential, but they cannot tell us everything. A financial system can expand enormously while generating very different outcomes from different household. 04:04 Speaker A And perhaps most importantly, does participation in the financial system make them more resilient, more capable of managing their economic lives? This is why I propose that we think of inclusion as a progression: access, meaningful use, safety and trust, financial resilience, and finally financial well-being. So through this presentation, I will use this framing proposition and also explain the analytical approach I'm taking. For many years, progress in financial inclusion was understandably measured through indicators such as bank account ownership, banking penetration, credit access, or the number of financial access points. More recently, digital payments and mobile financial services have become central measures of progress. 04:23 Speaker A Digital payments can dramatically reduce transaction cost but digitalization alone does not necessarily improve income, employment, savings or productive capacity. 04:37 Speaker A These indicators are essential, but they cannot tell us everything. A financial system can expand enormously while generating very different outcomes for different households. 05:01 Speaker A opportunities and financial wellbe. This distinction will become particularly important when we look at women and older adults. 05:15 Speaker A Credit, for example, can finance education, entrepreneurship, or productive investment, but it can also finance recurrent household consumption under conditions that increase indebtedness and vulnerability. 05:30 Speaker A It can overcome distance. It can reduce transaction cost. It can reduce dependency on physical branches. It can make everyday payments faster and more convenient. And for population historically underserved by traditional banking infrastructure, this advantage can be transformative. 05:54 Speaker A Digital payments can dramatically reduce transaction costs, but digitalization alone does not necessarily improve income, employment, savings, or productive capacity. 06:11 Speaker A A physical branch may disappear as a real but connectivity becomes substantial. A paper form may disappear but now the user must navigate an application. 06:29 Speaker A So the question is not whether coverage matters—they do. The question is whether they are enough. I suggest that we evaluate inclusion not simply by how many people enter the system but also by whether financial participation strengthens autonomy, resilience, productive opportunities, and financial wellbeing. This distinction will become particularly important when we look at women and older adults. 06:39 Speaker A And while digital service can improve or h prevent fraud, fishing, identity and fear of um taking irreversible mistakes. 06:59 Speaker A Digitalization illustrates this tension perhaps better than anything else. Digital finance has created extraordinary opportunities. 07:23 Speaker A That is why I distinguish here between access, usage, quality, trust and impact. Digital access is important but digital access is not the same as the meaningful financial inclusion and this raises another problem. National average can make progress look much more uniform 07:50 Speaker A It can overcome distance. It can reduce transaction costs. It can reduce dependency on physical branches. It can make everyday payments faster and more convenient. And for populations historically underserved by traditional banking infrastructure, this advantage can be transformative. 08:09 Speaker A The average can be useful for international comparison, but an average person doesn't actually exist. 08:17 Speaker A But here is the paradox. Every barrier removed by technology can be accompanied by another barrier that technology itself creates or reinforces. 08:31 Speaker A And this characteristics incorrect. Being a woman doesn't generate one universal financial experience. Being another older adult doesn't generate one universal financial experience either. Consider the difference between an urban woman uh with a stable employment and high digital literacy and a rural woman with 08:59 Speaker A A physical branch may disappear as a real barrier, but connectivity becomes substantial. A paper form may disappear, but now the user must navigate an application. 09:19 Speaker A Both individuals may formally have access but the condition under which they can transform that access into real financial capability and radically are radically different. This is particularly particularly important for older adults. 09:40 Speaker A A bank employee may no longer be needed for every transaction, but authentication procedures become increasingly complex. 09:59 Speaker A So the question behind these slides is simple. Who is hiding be behind the average? Because if we only design an imagin imaginary average user, we match unintentionally design inclusion exclusion into the system. 10:25 Speaker A And while digital services can improve or help prevent fraud, phishing, identity theft, and fear of making irreversible mistakes, 10:53 Speaker A between access and deeper financial participation. Chile shows very high levels of formal account ownerships and digital payments approximately 89% in both indicators in the data shown here and formal savings reached roughly 2/3 of adults meico presents another patterns more than half 11:26 Speaker A all this can weaken trust. So digital inclusion cannot simply mean transferring existing financial services to a screen. The relevant question is whether that screen makes finance genuinely easier, safer, and more useful for different kinds of people. 11:35 Speaker A Yet formal saving is only 7.1% in this comparison while formal borrowing is below 10%. 11:46 Speaker A That is why I distinguish here between access, usage, quality, trust, and impact. Digital access is important, but digital access is not the same as meaningful financial inclusion. And this raises another problem. National averages can make progress look much more uniform than it actually is. Who is hiding behind the average? When we say that a country has reached a certain level of financial inclusion, who exactly are we describing? 11:58 Speaker A While formal saving is higher than in Mexico but far below the Chilean level, these difference matter. 12:08 Speaker A The average can be useful for international comparison, but an average person doesn't actually exist. 12:19 Speaker A If digital payments expand rapidly while formal saving remains limited, we have achieved something important but not necessarily everything we want financial inclusion to accomplish. A payment instrument facilitate transaction. 12:39 Speaker A Financial experiences differ by gender, age, income, place of residence, education, employment, connectivity, and digital capabilities. 12:49 Speaker A Insurance transfer risk. Investments helps accumulate assets. These are different financial functions. These are um well u therefore the real question is not only who enters the financial system it is what people are actually able to do once there are they are inside 13:19 Speaker A And these characteristics intersect. Being a woman doesn't generate one universal financial experience. Being an older adult doesn't generate one universal financial experience either. Consider the difference between an urban woman with stable employment and high digital literacy and a rural woman with a regular income and limited connectivity. Or between an older adult who has used online banking for 20 years and another who only recently began using a smartphone because a bank branch closed. 13:37 Speaker A Mexico remind us to look at the structural gaps. Digitalization is advanced but income, education territory employment connectivity continue to shape financial opportunities. 13:56 Speaker A Both individuals may formally have access, but the conditions under which they can transform that access into real financial capability are radically different. This is particularly important for older adults. 14:22 Speaker A Research with older banking consumer in Bogotaa illustrates that technological adoption can be constrained by perceived risk, usability, established a habits and perception of technology. So these are different trajectories but they lead to the same question. 14:46 Speaker A They might have an account, receive a pension, and have a debit card while still facing dedication problems, perceiving risk, technological anxiety, or dependency on relatives to complete transactions. 14:59 Speaker A To answer that question, we have to stop thinking of inclusion as the distribution of individual products. 15:08 Speaker A So the question behind these slides is simple. Who is hiding behind the average? Because if we only design for an imaginary average user, we may unintentionally design inclusion exclusion into the system. 15:20 Speaker A They need to receive income, pay bills, send money and make purchases. That is where payments matters. 15:32 Speaker A Three countries, three trajectories. Now let us look briefly at Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. I'm using these countries not to establish a ranking because their trajectories help us observe different dimensions of the inclusion challenge. The first thing that stands out is the difference between access and deeper financial participation. Chile shows very high levels of formal account ownership and digital payments, approximately 89% in both indicators in the data shown here, and formal savings reached roughly two-thirds of adults. Mexico presents another pattern. More than half of adults have a formal account, and approximately half have made or received a digital payment. 15:42 Speaker A Sometimes they need to bring future uh resources into the present to finance education, housing, a business or temporary income shorters. 15:57 Speaker A Yet formal saving is only 7.1% in this comparison, while formal borrowing is below 10%. 16:11 Speaker A That is where insurance matters. And over longer orig investment matters. So financial inclusion is better understood as an ecosystem. 16:33 Speaker A Colombia presents a tiered configuration. Formal account ownership is lower than in Mexico and much lower than in Chile. 16:59 Speaker A is this. People do not need financial products simple because those products exist. They need financial solution that correspond to actual problems in their lives. 17:17 Speaker A While formal saving is higher than in Mexico but far below the Chilean level, these differences matter. 17:31 Speaker A Can I obtain it? Can I afford it? Can I use it? Use it. Am I protected? 17:42 Speaker A They show why we should be cautious about using a single indicator as shorthand for inclusion. 18:04 Speaker A That's why I propose that that uh six simple questions to help. And well notice how far we have now moved beyond a account ownership. 18:20 Speaker A If digital payments expand rapidly while formal saving remains limited, we have achieved something important but not necessarily everything we want financial inclusion to accomplish. A payment instrument facilitates transactions. 18:41 Speaker A Well, let me make this more concrete to through two uh composite profiles. These are not um specific individuals. 18:54 Speaker A A savings instrument helps prepare for future needs and shocks. Credit moves resources across time. 19:06 Speaker A Oh, sorry. I repeat this. here. Meet Brenda. She is 42, works independently, and has variable income. She owns a smartphone. He has a bank account and regularly uses digital payments. From the perspective of a conventional access indicator, Brenda looks successfully in 19:33 Speaker A Insurance transfers risk. Investments help accumulate assets. These are different financial functions. Therefore, the real question is not only who enters the financial system; it is what people are actually able... 19:59 Speaker A collateral formal financial opportunities may remain restricted to her. Her question is there therefore not can I enter the financial system she is already inside her question is can this financial system help me build resilience now meet Lydia she is 69 and retired her pensions 20:28 Speaker A provides regular income she um has a bank account and debit card and receives income electronically. 20:41 Speaker A Again, statistically she looks included, but she may have difficulty with identification. She worries about fraud. She occasionally needs assistance um with digital transaction transactions and each new application or update may require her to learn another interface. 21:05 Speaker A Her central question is different. Can I use this system safely and independently? Brenda and Lydia illustrates something fundamental. The same financial infrastructure can generate completely different from forms of inclusion. 21:27 Speaker A This customer journey allows uh to shape why a financial relationship is not a single moment is a sequency. First people become aware of a product. Then they compare a alternatives. 21:47 Speaker A Let me open. Okay. They open an account or register. They use uh they begin using it. Later they may use additional products and eventually something goes wrong or they simply need assistance. 22:10 Speaker A For Brenda, saving may be difficult because income is unstable. Credit may be constrained by formal requirements or lack of credit history. For Lydia, some credit products may feel unnecessarily complex. Security concerns may extremely influence in her decisions. And customer 22:35 Speaker A support is particularly important because a digital error that is trivial for one person may become a zero barrier for another. So here is the crucial insight. 22:47 Speaker A Same account, same app, different needs, different barrier, different outcomes. The share of objective is financial well-being, but different people may need very different pathways to reach this. 23:11 Speaker A So here the different needs and barrier and perfect. Next, the high impressions. Uh those different pathways led us to what I call the hide in friction of digital finance. 23:34 Speaker A And here I want to make an important distinction. Financial exclusion can happen after access um excuse me financial exclusion not inclusion connectivity is one friction uh can I really uh really reach the service uh affordability is another data 24:00 Speaker A devices and fees matter usability and Accessibility are another. Can I comfortably read, understand and navigate the interface? 24:15 Speaker A Authentication cutting itself become exclusionary. Password pins, biometricals, multiple verification procedures are essential for security, but they can also log legitimate users out of their own accounts. Then there is trust. 24:39 Speaker A Do I believe the transaction is safe? Do I understand what happens if I make a mistake? 24:50 Speaker A Do I trust the communication I received from the institution? And finally, human support. What happens when something fails? This question becomes increasingly important as financial inst institution automate more uh of the customer relationship. 25:12 Speaker A Automation is extremely useful for a scale but when no workable path of human assistance exists. A temporary problem can beame permanent exclusion. These are not marginal usability issues. There are directly affects where whether people can exercise control over their financial 25:36 Speaker A resources. Connectivity and technology are not meant. Continue the uh height. The Mexican evidence shown here gives G give shown here gives give us a clear illustration. 26:00 Speaker A Internet [clears throat] use uh is substantially higher in urban than rural areas more than 80% compared with 60 62% in the figures here presented the difference in online banking is even larger larger 20 uh 27 in urban areas versus 10% % in rural 26:31 Speaker A areas. So offering a mobile financial products does does not place everyone in the same position. The service may be identical. The environment in which the user access it is not and technology itself is not natural either. 26:52 Speaker A So a digital service can be technically available and still be practable practically inaccessible. This is why inclusive innovation requires much more than technical deployment. 27:13 Speaker A Now financial education is necessary but it's not enough at this point. Financial education often enters to the conversation and rightly so. Financial knowledge can help people understand interest, inflation, risk and financial products. It can improve comparison and decision making in can encourage 27:39 Speaker A planning and inform borrowing and digital financial education can can help user in identify fraud or and recognize safer practices. But education cannot solve every problem. It cannot provide internet connectivity. It cannot redesign an inaccessible application. It cannot simplify unnecessary complicate 28:08 Speaker A authentication procedure. It cannot make an unffordable financial product affordable. It cannot replace consumer protection. It cannot elimmit eliminate structural inequalities related to income, gender, employment or even a geography. This is why I prefer the broader idea of financial 28:36 Speaker A capability. Financial capability emerge through the interaction of knowledge, skills, access to appropriate service and financial environment in which people can actually apply what they know. So education remains essential but we should never use education as a way to transfer all 29:01 Speaker A responsibility from institutions to consumers. two two examples of why education is not enough. Consider these two examples. A woman may understand perfectly how credit works. 29:23 Speaker A She may understand interest repayment schedules and default risk. And yet she can still face irregular income, inadequate collateral, unsuitable products condition or structural constraints associated with employment as an asset ownership. 29:45 Speaker A Hair exclusion is not caused simply by ignorance. Likewise, an older um adult may fully understand the financial products being being offered, but that person may struggle to read the interface, remember several authentication steps, recover access after an error, or distinguish 30:13 Speaker A legitimate communication from fraud. Again the problem is not simply finan financial literacy. This uh distinction matters because it changes our policy question instead of asking only how do we teach users to adapt to finance. 30:40 Speaker A Two more minutes. This led led us to a practical proposal. I want to leave uh with you. Five principles for moving from inclusion by access to inclusion by design. First, design for the um diversity. 31:01 Speaker A Do not design for an imagin customer. Gender, age, income, geography, and digital experience should be treated as design variables for from the beginning. Second, measure meaningful use. 31:22 Speaker A An unuse account is not the same as an empowering financial relationship. We should we should measure what people can actually accomplish with financial service. 31:39 Speaker A Third, build protection into the product. Safe. Safety should not be an an additional layer added after product. Of course, a service that people are afraid to use is not fully inclusive. 31:59 Speaker A Fourth, keep human support inside a digital system. This is not an argument against automation. Digital channels are essential. But digital first should not become human last. Automation expands scale. Human support can preserve autonomy. 32:23 Speaker A And uh fifth evaluate innovation through financial well-being. Technology is a means. The objective is not simply adoption. 32:35 Speaker A The ultimate question is whether finance increase control, resilience, security, autonomy and the ability to pursue longterm financial goals. Those five principles represent in essence uh a shift from technology center to innovation to human center financial inclusion. 33:01 Speaker A Innovation for who? So before before describing any financial innovation as inclusive, I suggest asking five questions. Who can ask access it and who may still be left out? Because my veterans we have h discussed. Can people actually use it confidentially 33:27 Speaker A and independently over the time? does uh it address the the genuine financial needs and finally does it improve financial well-being. These questions apply uh to banks, fintech firms, regulators, policy makers, educators and researchers. 33:53 Speaker A And they matter precisely because innovation itself is not automatically inclusive. Inclusiveness depends on its design, its institutional environment and the opens it produces vision access. Oh. Oh, just to close. Uh so I would like to return to the 34:24 Speaker A question with which we uh began. If a woman or an older adult has a bank and coach and a smartphone, are they they are they financially included? My answer is possibly. But that tell us only where the story 34:45 Speaker A begins. We also need needs to ask inclusive for whom, usable for whom safe for whom, valuable for whom and producing better outcomes for whom. The challenge for the next generation of financial inclusion is therefore not simply to connect more people to 35:09 Speaker A finance. Is to create financial systems that recognize diversity and allow different people to participate safely and meaningfully. 35:23 Speaker A Access is the beginning. Financial well-being is the destination. Thank you very much for your time and for being part of financial inclusion week. I hope these ideas contribute to the broader conversation about how we can design financial innovation that 35:46 Speaker A genuinely works for everyone. My contact information is a available here and I will be very pleased to continue this conversation with you. Thank you very much. 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