The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published the results of its 2025 Financial Access Survey (FAS), along with a report titled "Financial Access Survey: Fintech, a Catalyst for Financial Services Access, Innovation and Growth." The survey and report highlight how financial technology is influencing access to financial services worldwide.
According to the IMF, digital transactions such as mobile money and internet banking have increased significantly in emerging and developing economies. The number of digital transactions per adult rose from 55 in 2017 to 251 by 2024. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen especially rapid adoption of mobile money, which now outpaces traditional deposit accounts in several countries. These digital services allow rural populations to save, transfer funds, and pay bills more securely. Digital payments have also changed the way remittances are sent, with the share of remittances conducted digitally increasing from 13% in 2019 to 46% by 2024.
The report also examines fintech lending’s impact on credit access for underserved groups. It states that Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services reached $350 billion in transaction value in 2024 globally, while peer-to-peer and marketplace lending accounted for $62 billion. In Sub-Saharan Africa, fintech lending aimed at micro and small enterprises grew from representing 13% to 88% of all fintech funding between 2020 and 2023. In many emerging markets, fintech lenders are serving young people and rural borrowers who were previously excluded from formal finance systems. In some advanced economies, fintech firms have surpassed traditional banks in issuing unsecured personal loans.
However, challenges persist. The IMF notes a strong link between literacy levels and successful use of digital financial services. Countries with higher financial and digital skills tend to see greater adoption rates; meanwhile, gaps in knowledge can hinder safe usage elsewhere. Other obstacles include poor infrastructure, high costs, complex regulations, risks of over-indebtedness or fraud, identity theft, and persistent gender disparities—women hold only about two-thirds as much in deposits as men globally and less than half as much in loan balances.
Products like BNPL may make it difficult for consumers to understand borrowing costs because they are unsecured loans often not recorded by credit registries. The IMF cautions that without improvements in financial education, regulatory clarity, and cybersecurity protections these risks could undermine the benefits brought by fintech innovations.
To address data gaps related to fintech growth, the FAS team conducted pilot studies during 2024-2025 that tested over one hundred new indicators across various areas such as e-money products, peer-to-peer lending platforms, equity crowdfunding initiatives, neobanks, and others. Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Kosovo, and Saudi Arabia contributed notably to these pilots by helping set new standards for collecting fintech-related data. Some indicators from these pilots will be added into future FAS reports so policymakers can better track trends related to financial inclusion driven by technology advancements.
These initiatives align with international recommendations like the G20 Data Gaps Initiative-3 Recommendation 12 on improving data around fintech-enabled financial inclusion.