The promise of fintech has always been aspirational at its core. Its goals at to tear down the walls that keep millions locked out of the financial system, make banking accessible to the unbanked, give gig workers the credit they deserve, empower small businesses in emerging markets, and put investing tools in everyone’s hands, not just the wealthy.
And it’s working… sort of.
According to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025, financial inclusion has reached record highs, with 79% of adults globally now having a financial account, up from 74% in 2021. (Source) In low- and middle-income countries, account ownership jumped to 75%, a remarkable 20-percentage-point increase over the past decade. Mobile money has been particularly transformative, with 15% of adults worldwide now using mobile money accounts.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: 1.3 billion adults still lack access to basic financial services, and another 300 million have accounts they never use. (Source)
The Gap Between Access and Usage
Democratization expands access to financial services for underserved or overlooked populations — including the underbanked, small businesses, gig workers, and emerging-market users. It takes services that were once reserved for the privileged few and makes them available to everyone.
Many fintechs have successfully opened these doors. Companies are democratizing investing through micro-investing apps, extending credit through alternative credit scoring, and providing banking services to gig workers who traditional banks labeled “too risky.” The numbers prove it’s possible. Formal savings in developing economies surged to 40% of adults in 2024. This is a 16-percentage-point increase since 2021 and the fastest rise in more than a decade. (Source)
But access alone isn’t democratization. Not when 70% of gig workers face challenges obtaining essential financial products like loans, mortgages, or credit cards. (Source) Not when the user experience is so convoluted that people with accounts abandon them.
This is the hard lesson Fintech is learning: if you democratize access but fail to democratize usability, you haven’t democratized anything at all.
When User Experience Becomes the New Barrier
Research from Mastercard and Nubank found something revealing: consistent use of digital payments is a better predictor of financial health than income. (Source) When users engage regularly with prepaid cards or real-time payments, familiarity breeds trust, which breeds more usage. The data shows that 80% of customers who started with a prepaid card eventually accessed loan products, and 36% went on to make investments.
The implication is clear: seamless, intuitive user experience is the difference between financial inclusion and financial theater.
Consider the gig economy, where 42 million workers in the U.S. alone face irregular income, lack of benefits, and complex tax obligations. (Source) Fintech platforms like Found, Moves, and KarmaLife have stepped in with alternative credit scoring, earned wage access, and micro-insurance designed specifically for this population. But they succeed because they offer these services and make them effortless to use.
The best democratizing Fintechs understand that their audience often includes people with limited digital or financial literacy. They can’t afford friction. They can’t afford confusing interfaces. They can’t afford to spend hours navigating bureaucratic verification processes. These users need financial products that work on the first try, explained in language they understand, accessible from devices they already own.
The True Test of Democratization
When Fintechs succeed at genuine democratization, they unlock massive new markets while delivering on finance’s fundamental promise: economic opportunity for everyone. But success requires more than good intentions and innovative technology. It requires obsessive attention to the end-to-end user experience.
Consider how communication platforms like WeChat evolved into comprehensive financial ecosystems. WeChat Pay embedded them seamlessly into the daily habits of over a billion users. (Source) The difference between access and adoption often comes down to this: does using your service feel like an extra burden, or does it disappear into the flow of everyday life?
The financial inclusion community increasingly recognizes this reality. As noted by World Bank research, achieving true progress on financial resilience requires moving beyond account ownership as the primary metric of success. (Source) Just 56% of adults in low- and middle-income countries can access emergency funds within 30 days. (Source) This proves that account ownership clearly isn’t translating to financial resilience.
What Democratization Demands
For Fintech marketing and product leaders, democratization goes beyond being an operational mandate. Every unclear error message discriminates against users with lower financial literacy. Every feature that requires a smartphone with the latest OS excludes millions of potential users.
The companies that will win the democratization race won’t be those with the most innovative algorithms or the flashiest pitch decks. They’ll be the ones who obsess over whether a single mother working three gig jobs can sign up in under two minutes from a five-year-old Android phone. They’ll be the ones who test their interfaces with actual underbanked users, not just tech-savvy early adopters.
Because in the end, democratization is making platforms that people can actually use, and that gap between access and usage. That’s where the real work begins.
If you want to better position your brand as a bulwark in the democratization of fintech, let’s chat: info@tpalmeragency.com. We can help you get the message out about what makes your business different and how you’re helping these underserved communities.
