Dr Alfred Hannig, CEO, Alliance for Financial Inclusion
At the upcoming 2026 AFI Global Policy Forum in Port Moresby, we’re devoting a plenary session to ‘Financial Health: the Foundation of Resilient Economies and an Inclusive Future’.
Ever since AFI was founded in 2009, the notion of financial health has formed an integral part of how we understand financial inclusion. Because what good is access to financial services, if it’s not making a positive difference to people’s lives?
Today, this view is commonly accepted, thanks in part to influential figures such as Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health, speaking up on the need for financial services to empower people to manage their day-to-day finances, build resilience to financial shocks, and plan for the future.
In a way, financial health equates to physical health: you only think about it when your situation turns bad. But when economic, health or climate-related shocks push those with poor financial health into poverty, the effects are severe and immediate. Doctors’ or school fees can no longer be paid. Small businesses close, and jobs are lost.
These issues affect developing and developed countries alike. Poor financial health was a central factor in the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007/2008, when millions of households with high debt and little savings were suddenly unable to meet their obligations.
So what causes poor financial health? Multiple factors are at play: inflation, economic instability, poor regulation, weak cyber resilience caused by scams and frauds, low financial literacy, weak social safety mechanisms, job loss, climate or weather shocks, political unrest, and more. Financial services themselves can also create challenges for customers, via products which are overly complex or even confusing, or designed in ways that exploit people’s behavioural weaknesses.
What can we do to bolster financial health?
Within AFI, financial health is neither seen as a standalone workstream nor a new concept, but as a desired outcome towards which strategies, policies and regulations can make important contributions. Around the world, our members are working to advance financial health in a variety of ways, including:
- Moving beyond access metrics to outcome measurement, by embedding financial health indicators (resilience, money management, planning for the future) into measurement frameworks. The Central Bank of Jordan has set a target of raising the average adult financial health score from 42% in 2023 to 50% per cent by 2028.
- Embedding Financial Health in national financial inclusion strategies. A growing number of AFI members are explicitly referencing financial health, resilience or wellbeing in their National Financial Inclusion Strategies. Rwanda’s National Financial Inclusion Roadmap 2026 to 2030 explicitly pivots from access to financial health.
- Protecting consumers from fraud. Bank Negara Malysia and Kazakhstan’s Financial Markets Agency are developing anti-fraud and market conduct packages to protect digital financial service users, an essential foundation for trust and financial health. AFI is currently developing a Consumer Protection Policy Model which will provide useful guidance in this area.
- Leveraging technology and innovation. In Nepal, women market traders can now accept payments through QR codes, protecting them from losses and helping them to manage their finances.
- Gender-responsive policymaking. State Bank of Pakistan mandates banks to collect detailed gender-disaggregated data to inform efforts to improve women’s financial health. AFI’s Gender Inclusive Finance Policy Model sets out a number of ways through which policy can contribute to women’s financial wellbeing.
- Building climate resilience. In Mongolia, Central Bank-supported rural cooperatives are helping farmers pool resources, save, and shift to sustainable, climate-friendly practice.
- Leveraging behavioral science. In Mexico, the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), with support from AFI, has conducted research into how vulnerable groups can be ‘nudged’ towards behaviors that boost their financial health.
The examples highlighted above, and others around the world, deserve to be studied, for each has the potential to be adapted and replicated.
A precondition for financial stability and inclusive prosperity
When families are financially healthy, they can build resilience, cope with illness, live in decent housing, and send their children to school. Financially healthy small businesses can invest, withstand shocks, create jobs and capitalize on opportunity. When vulnerable populations are financially healthy, they can control and shape their lives and their futures which will contribute to financial stability and ultimately to what we all are striving for: inclusive prosperity.
For all these reasons, AFI is committed to keeping financial health at the heart of the inclusion agenda. Our upcoming Global Policy Forum in Papua New Guinea will therefore be an opportunity to take stock of the progress of current initiatives. We look forward to sharing fresh insight together with our partners, to supporting countries’ efforts to measure and bolster financial health, and to enabling further research into this vital area.