National financial inclusion strategies – such as Kenya’s recent 2025–2028 plan- are shifting from financial access for access’s sake toward ensuring households demonstrably thrive through diverse, affordable and quality services. Closing non-bank, digital policy gaps will be central to this reorientation towards ‘financial health’. Regulators are already weighing measures that include stronger fintech Know Your Customer and governance rules, virtual asset frameworks, alternative collateral registries – so digital lenders can accept movable assets, such as crops, as loan security, and open finance directories to lower transfer costs and foster cross-platform interoperability. A working group under LEAD, a public-governance initiative, brings regulators and private-sector leaders together to align on digital finance reform priorities
Key points:
- Agreeing upon a universal definition of “financial health” and how – and how often – it should be measured
- Virtual assets e-KYC and open finance: Where does the private sector see the largest policy gaps preventing it from advancing “financial health”?
- Lessons from past national strategies: What truly incentivises the private sector to build affordable services and a savings culture in commercially unviable informal sectors?