IFC Wants to Bring 90 Million More Users Into the Digital Payments Economy

The International Finance Corporation has launched a risk-sharing initiative offering up to US$700 million in guarantees to help banks, fintechs and other financial institutions in emerging markets expand digital payment services. The plan targets a less visible barrier to financial inclusion: the financial requirements that can prevent local institutions from participating fully in global payment ecosystems.

Digital payments can look frictionless to consumers, but the systems behind them are anything but simple. In many emerging markets, banks, fintechs and other financial institutions face financial requirements that restrict their ability to participate fully in global payment ecosystems, leaving consumers and small businesses more dependent on cash.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is targeting that less visible constraint with up to US$700 million in guarantees designed to absorb part of the credit settlement risk faced by participating institutions. IFC estimates the initiative could support about US$280 billion in additional digital payments, 360 million more cards and 90 million additional active users.

The Real Bottleneck Sits Behind the Payment Screen

Financial inclusion debates often focus on whether consumers have smartphones, bank accounts or digital literacy. IFC's initiative shifts attention to another layer: whether local financial institutions have the balance-sheet capacity and risk tolerance needed to participate in global payment networks.

Credit settlement risk can become a limiting factor when institutions process transactions but face exposure before payments are fully settled. Covering part of that risk can allow banks, fintechs and other providers to expand digital payment services without carrying the entire financial burden themselves.

The intervention works upstream from the consumer. Instead of putting money directly into wallets or subsidising transactions, IFC is trying to strengthen the institutions that issue cards, process payments and connect merchants to wider financial networks.

The approach reflects a broader reality in digital finance. Access problems are not always caused by the absence of technology; they can also come from the financial architecture that determines which institutions are able to participate and how much risk they can carry.

Scale Is the Opportunity and the First Test

IFC expects participating institutions to generate roughly US$280 billion in additional digital payments. It also projects 360 million more cards and 90 million additional active users, including 39 million women.

Those numbers give the initiative significant reach on paper, especially in markets where large parts of the population and many small merchants still rely heavily on cash. Small business owners, women entrepreneurs and people historically excluded from formal finance are among the groups IFC says the initiative is intended to reach.

Card issuance alone, however, will not show whether the initiative has worked. A newly issued card can remain inactive, while a registered user may still rely primarily on cash if digital payments are costly, unreliable or poorly accepted by merchants.

Active usage will therefore be a more revealing measure than headline distribution figures. The program's longer-term value will depend on whether new users actually transact, whether merchants continue accepting digital payments and whether participation becomes routine rather than occasional.

More Competition Could Improve Access, but Inclusion Is Harder to Measure

IFC expects the initiative to increase competition and improve the quality and accessibility of payment services. Bringing more institutions into global payment ecosystems could give consumers and merchants a wider choice of providers and reduce dependence on a limited number of channels.

Competition can also encourage institutions to improve reliability, reach and product design, particularly where customers have few alternatives. Small businesses may benefit if more providers compete to serve merchants that have previously operated mainly in cash.

Financial inclusion, however, cannot be reduced to the number of institutions connected to a payment network. Affordability, transaction costs, merchant acceptance, reliability and customer trust all influence whether digital access becomes meaningful in practice.

Women's participation deserves particular attention because IFC expects 39 million of the additional active users to be women. The figure creates a clear benchmark, but the eventual distribution of benefits will depend on how participating institutions reach women entrepreneurs and other underserved customers rather than simply expanding their overall user base.

The Bigger Question Is Whether Guarantees Create Lasting Market Capacity

Risk sharing can lower the threshold for institutions entering or expanding within digital payment systems, but the durability of the model will depend on what happens once guaranteed support becomes less important.

Participating banks and fintechs will still need viable payment businesses, reliable customers and sustainable transaction volumes. If guarantees help institutions build scale and develop stronger payment operations, the initiative could leave behind deeper market capacity. If expansion remains heavily dependent on external protection, the impact may prove more limited.

Cost and risk allocation will also deserve scrutiny. IFC will cover only a portion of credit settlement risk, meaning participating institutions must still retain exposure and make their own commercial decisions about how aggressively to expand.

Geography is another open question. The initiative targets emerging markets broadly, but the available details do not specify where guarantees will be concentrated, which institutions will participate first or how funding will be divided across countries and customer groups.

Those choices will shape the program's real impact. A US$700 million guarantee pool can support substantial expansion, but the strongest evidence of success will come from sustained transaction growth, active usage and broader merchant participation rather than raw card issuance.