How Digital Finance Can Become the “Great Equaliser” for People with Disabilities
People with disabilities make up 16% of the global population, with 80% living in low- and middle-income countries. With the right tools and approach, people with physical and cognitive disabilities can gain financial autonomy and become fully integrated into economies. Many, however, are still being left behind.
In 2018, a UN report revealed that persons with disabilities considered 28% of banks in developed countries — and between 8% and 64% of banks in some emerging economies — to be inaccessible. Digital technology has the potential to serve as a “great equaliser.”
Following International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we look at how designing digital financial services with the needs of all consumers in mind is crucial to achieving fair finance worldwide, all year round.
The Challenge
Attitudes
According to a 2024 report analysing publications over the past two decades, higher unemployment rates among persons with disabilities, and an assumption of dependency, means banks and financial services often fail to perceive them as valuable clientele.
Adding to this, our latest research shows that “financially vulnerable” individuals — including people with disabilities — are less confident in their ability to find the support they need compared to “less vulnerable” consumers.
This has a twofold impact: banks are less likely to build services tailored to people with disabilities, perpetuating harmful assumptions about their perceived “value.” Meanwhile, people with disabilities are less likely to find the information or support they need, making it harder to hold financial providers accountable.
To ensure true digital financial inclusion, we must challenge harmful stereotypes, highlight the voice of vulnerable consumers and build products with them, not just for them. Our initiatives such as Building the Consumer Voice for Digital Finance and the Fair Digital Finance Accelerator (FDFA) are addressing these issues head-on.
Inaccessibility
People with certain disabilities can find themselves excluded when platforms rely on audio or visual security measures such as CAPTCHAs, where users are asked to identify distorted letters or images containing certain objects. Tricky at the best of times — but how often are we given a different way to progress? Not often enough, the research shows.
A lack of accessible security measures, particularly for the visually impaired, means people must often depend on others for ID authentication, making them more vulnerable to theft or fraud. Often there will also be time limits on authentication, which adds difficulties for users with motor or cognitive impairments.
In Nigeria, our Member Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation (CADEF) agreed this was a problem that desperately needed addressing. Executive Director of CADEF, Professor Chiso Ndukwe-Okafor, observed:
“People with disabilities often felt overwhelmed by digital finance technology, excluded due to accessibility issues, and unsure about the security and ease of use”. She added: “limited access to devices and past negative experiences has also contributed to their hesitation to use digital financial services.”
Our initiatives have provided training and support to help Consumers International Members such as CADEF advocate for the rights of people with disabilities within digital finance — but there’s still much more work to be done.
Lack of Literacy
To add to the difficulties around access, consumer groups have also observed a digital and financial literacy gap among people with disabilities. Cognitive disabilities or difficulty accessing information in traditional formats compound this issue.
Digital financial services and financial educators must offer information in accessible, alternative formats to empower people with disabilities to manage their finances independently.
The Solutions
Design with consumers in mind from the outset
Equity and inclusivity must be central to financial service design. Gathering feedback from us - as consumers - to help share our lived experience, through market research or surveys, allows financial services to be designed with consumer needs in mind. If such a process can become standard, we’ll see a greater number of products and services that are more relevant for a greater number of people.
Going further, designing with consumers (as opposed to just “keeping them in mind”) can also bring about radical results. Consumer rights group Tec-Check adopted this approach when they created a collective complaints platform with consumers to combat a lack of complaint mechanisms in Mexico. This joint effort resulted in consumers being able to assert their rights, with Tec-Check presenting group complaints to the Federal Consumer Protection Agency to ensure better and quicker resolutions.
Foster collaboration to drive change
Cooperation across core actors in the marketplace is essential to amplifying and hearing the voice of persons with disabilities and driving progress, as our Member CADEF as well as Kenya Consumers Organization (KCO) have demonstrated.
As part of our initiative Consumer Voice in Digital Finance, in October KCO brought together disparate voices from across the country – including policymakers, financial institutions, consumer groups and representatives from marginalised communities – to discuss the potential of digital finance in fostering inclusive economic growth.
Discussion underscored the ongoing challenges faced by vulnerable consumers. Not only were those most affected able to share the issues they are experiencing directly with decision-makers and providers, but participants mapped out a draft set of recommendations to improve inclusion. This included advocating for investment in rural infrastructure to improve mobile network coverage and internet connectivity, and strengthening consumer protection laws to prevent the exploitation of marginalised consumers in the digital finance space.
Jorum Odiemo, Head of Program, KCO described the value of such collaboration. He stated it was “essential to overcoming the barriers faced by these groups (…) Moving forward, it is crucial that all stakeholders work together to create an environment where digital finance is truly inclusive and accessible to all, particularly those who have traditionally been excluded from the financial sector."
On the other side of the continent, this year CADEF convened more than 1,000 people, government, financial institutions and disability organisations to discuss strategies for enhancing financial inclusion for people with disabilities.
This was beneficial for all those involved, including the financial institutions who “wanted to know how to access this category of consumers and were surprised at their lack of understanding of the needs of this population”, Professor Chiso Ndukwe-Okafor said.
A month later, CADEF also organised a roundtable on financial inclusion in which Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission affirmed its commitment to empowering and safeguarding people with disabilities.
Build financial literacy (and make it accessible!)
Even with accessible technology, people need financial knowledge to use it effectively.
Through funding provided by the FDFA, CADEF have also been able to train more than 80 people with disabilities on financial literacy. Participants were initially sceptical of digital financial services due to previous negative experiences but, following the workshops, they reported feeling “more empowered, included, informed, and comfortable with digital finance”, “more independent”, and “capable of managing their finances effectively in the digital age”.
Besides in-person workshops, there’s also a need for financial education resources to be supplied in accessible formats such as sign language and braille — to boost financial literacy of those unable to attend one-off events.
Kenya’s Deaf eLimu Banking App, built in collaboration with FSD Kenya, is an example of the change that can result from such collaboration. The app is a self-training tool that introduces the user to useful banking vocabulary in sign language, enabling non-disabled banking staff to better assist deaf customers.
As these examples demonstrate, consumer groups and other advocates are undertaking important work to facilitate better financial inclusivity for consumers. But consumer groups are often challenged to do this work alone — and with limited resources.
The Next Steps
For digital technology to serve as a “great equaliser” and allow access, inclusion and ease of use for everyone it’s imperative that financial sector actors work with and for consumers from all communities, backgrounds, and of all abilities to demand change and drive action.
Part of our approach at Consumers International is to build a community of consumer groups, industry, government and international forums to develop solutions together, and to support consumer organisations to retain the trust of the consumers they serve.
As our experience of disability-inclusive finance shows, when there is a collective commitment, the voices of those most exposed are elevated, helping to see ‘no one left behind’.