Publications

Fintech and Sustainable Development – Assessing the Implications

The report, a companion to the second edition of “The Financial System We Need”, assesses how the financial system’s core functions are likely to be disrupted by financial technology (“fintech”) innovations and how they could help – or hinder – efforts to align financing with sustainable development. It considers ways to:

• Unlock greater financial inclusion by reducing the costs for payments and providing better access to capital domestically and internationally;
• Mobilize domestic savings at a scale that will enable long-term investment directed at the long-term sustainability of the real economy;
• Disrupt the provision of financial protection, risk management, risk transfer and risk diversification for vulnerable and exposed communities, real economy assets and infrastructures, and nature’s ecosystems;
• Collect, analyze and distribute information on the financial system and the real economy for better economic decision-making, regulation and risk management;
• Provide financial markets with the level playing field and market integrity needed for long-term real economy investments aligned with the sustainable development agenda.

The report also presents an innovative analysis of how advances in three digital technologies – blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence (MLAI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) – could lead to revolutionary innovations for building trust, transparency and traceability for financial transactions and make tomorrow’s financial system far more efficient in mobilizing green finance.

Action is needed now to shape the emerging direction of fintech. The report therefore includes some key steps for the ‘fintech for sustainable development’ journey, such as:

• Ensuring that fintech is an integral part of financial system development plans, particularly at the national level, and especially for developing countries.
• Establishing a platform of leading fintech companies to influence the right enabling businesses, policies and standards to connect fintech with sustainable development.
• Incentivizing fintech alignment with sustainable development by, for example, supporting venture capital and social impact funds to fund start-ups with sustainable development ambitions.
• Creating a challenge fund to create a global community of purpose that can pilot and create replicable solutions over time.