The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Promoting Financial Inclusion in Developing Countries

According to the World Bank’s Global Findex database, about 1.7 billion adults were unbanked in 2017, which means that they lacked an account with a formal financial institution or a mobile money provider. Most of the unbanked population is in developing countries. In South Sudan, for instance, only 9% of the adults had a bank account. Similarly, about 70% of the population in Latin America is unbanked or underbanked (Rojas-Torres, Kshetri, Hanafi, & Kouki, 2021). Likewise, according to the International Finance Corporation, over 200 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries lack access to financial services.