Financial inclusion

Oriente: Serving ASEAN’s unbanked

With Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam alone hosting over 10 percent of the world’s unbanked population, providing the right infrastructure to bridge this gap is key to ASEAN’s sustained growth.The unbanked and underserved form a significant part of ASEAN’s population, with research firm CB Insights recently stating that just 47 percent of adults in ASEAN had a bank account while only a third of the region’s SMEs had access to loans or lines of credit last year. The region’s financi

18 July 2019
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Escaping poverty through microfinancing

Much has been written about the importance of financial inclusion for rural communities in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam. The benefits are obvious even to armchair economists.

10 November 2018
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Can fintech help rural Indonesians?

Fintech is taking over Indonesia. With a growing middle class and high internet penetration, fintech firms are mushrooming all over the country. In 2016, there were only around 50 firms operating in Indonesia and it is believe that there are more than 150 fintech firms running in the country right now. Many of the proponents for fintech are claiming that fintech will herald in a new era of banking, while sceptics are more cynical of the advantages that fintech could bring to consumers.

3 September 2018
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