The Top Three Challenges Facing Leaders in Inclusive Finance

credit: USACE on Flickr

"If you don't have a problem today, it's easy to think you don't need protection for tomorrow.

But if your business and your livelihood aren't protected, it's extremely risky," says Aria Widyanto, chief risk and sustainability officer at Indonesia's Amartha.

That's why the financial services company is sending its field officers to remote villages to conduct trainings and educate microentrepreneurs.

Widyanto was one of 65 professionals from 30 countries who recently attended a week-long program at Harvard Business School that focused on advancing financial and economic inclusion, Quartz reports.

The program was put together by Accion, a global nonprofit focused on helping the nearly 2 billion people left out of the global financial system, and the Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative.

Quartz spoke with five participants from the 2024 program about the issues they faced and what they need to achieve success going forward.

Among them: Adapting existing business practices to cater to underserved customers.

"As a traditional insurance company, we need to ask: how do we adapt our products across home, health, life, and business for low-income segments?" says Anastassia Senegas, head of customer value Proposition and Inclusive Insurance at AXA.

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