Evidence Synthesis or Map
What Ecosystem Improvements Will Unlock Investment in Digital Finance?
FiDA Snapshot #11
With the support of
This evidence review explores why investment in digital financial services (DFS) ecosystems has lagged and what can be done to change that. It draws on industry evidence to identify barriers and promising shifts.
- Why investment is slow: High setup costs, regulatory uncertainty, and limited investor understanding have constrained growth, especially for inclusive services.
- Who’s left out: Hard-to-reach populations remain underserved because the business case is weak without broader ecosystem support.
- What needs to change:
- Stronger technical infrastructure (e.g., APIs, open platforms)
- Broader financing options beyond venture capital, including local debt
- Smarter, systemic funding approaches that enable market-wide growth
- Emerging opportunities: Increased smartphone access, better-designed accelerators, and catalytic donor funding are shifting momentum.
Unlocking investment will require ecosystem-wide changes beyond just more capital. It will require better-aligned, inclusive, and responsible strategies.
Contributors Lara Gilman, David Edelstein, Maha Khan
Date
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This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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