Raconteur Features Elisabeth Rhyne in “Challenges in Banking the Unbanked”

The CFI Managing Director discusses differences between banking in developed and developing countries.

In the March 14 piece, Rhyne’s insights are part of a broad survey of the global financial inclusion landscape — from barriers to financial inclusion in the developing world, to its benefits and the tools that are helping to integrate marginalized populations into the “financial mainstream.”

“In the developing world there is an issue of absolute low incomes,” Rhyne said in the feature, which appeared in the Future of Money, a 20-page insert published in The Times (UK) in association with Money 20/20. “In regards to how much in deposits people would be providing, how large a credit they might want, these are below the threshold of feasibility for banks using traditional branch-based, teller-based models. So you couldn’t put a branch out in a rural area and expect it to be profitable.”

Rhyne uses the example of hyperinflation in Latin America to illustrate why potential customers don’t have bank accounts, and concludes the article by noting that digital payments “are going to be essential” over the next decade.

Raconteur is a publisher of “special-interest content and research” whose special reports are inserted into the printed version of The Times (UK). Read the full article here.

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