WSBI is a member of the Coalition of Partners that support the World Bank Group’s Universal Financial Access (UFA) 2020 Goal. At its meeting in Washington, D.C., on 23 September 2015, the WSBI General Assembly announced a new UFA 2020 numerical
commitment that aims to reach 1.7 billion clients and 400 million new transaction accounts by the end of 2020, based on the current membership. This pledge reinforces WSBI’s continued engagement with its ‘Account for Everyone’ goal launched by the trade body in 2012, which it re-endorsed in 2015 at the World Bank spring meetings. The UFA commitment also forms an integral part of the
Washington Declaration issued the day after during the 2015 WSBI World Congress. WSBI and the World Bank Group via a
Memorandum of Understanding aim to identify and thereafter facilitate or implement joint actions involving WSBI member banks in support of the 2020 goal. Actions taken jointly by the two parties are intended to address issues at both global and country level, including needed legal or regulatory reforms, financial technology investments, stakeholder dialogues, advisory services, innovation support for incubator work, as well as field and market fit testing. Initial priority will go to WSBI members who represent 17 of the 25 countries the World Bank has identified as ‘focus countries’, containing 70 per cent of the world’s unbanked population. WSBI members in other countries could be added by mutual agreement.
WSBI member savings and retail banks currently continue to make
progress towards their Universal Financial Access 2020 pledge, newly updated data released by WSBI shows. The latest available data compiled by the Brussels-based institute point to 136 million new clients as of 31 December 2016 from the UFA commitment starting point set at year-end 2014. WSBI members, who are present in some 80 countries worldwide, had 1.57 billion clients as of year-end 2016. Relatedly, the number of new transaction accounts provided by WSBI through 2016, stood at 2.35 billion, up 236 million based on the end-of-2014 benchmark.
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