Harder Choices Ahead: What the Financial Inclusion Compass 2026 Tells us About the Sector’s Shifting Challenges
What is the biggest story in financial inclusion in 2026? Sam Mendelson at European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) shares insights from e-MFP’s “Financial Inclusion Compass 2026,” a survey of sector trends, risks and priorities that’s been published since 2018. As he explains, the survey responses show a sector that is raising its ambitions for what financial inclusion has to achieve, at the same time as the environment in which it operates is becoming more difficult. He explores some key findings, as financial inclusion moves away from an era characterized by access, growth and donor-supported expansion, and towards one increasingly shaped by resilience, adaptation, commercial pressure, and harder choices about who gets served, how and at what cost.
