Key Evidence

Lack of money is a primary barrier to account ownership and it falls disproportionately on women, who are overrepresented among the world's poorest households and most likely to experience income as irregular and unpredictable.

• According to the Global Findex 2025, lack of money remains the most commonly cited reason adults without accounts give for not having one — a pattern that holds across regions and is especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is the top reported barrier to mobile money account ownership. The impact is acute in some economies: in Egypt, 90% of unbanked adults cited lack of money as a barrier, with half naming it as their only reason. Being poor remains the biggest obstacle to financial access globally, with adults in poorer households making up a disproportionate share of the unbanked. (The Global Findex, 2025)

Real or perceived lack of money persists as a barrier after account opening. Irregular income and the perceived lack of value in DFS drive high inactivity rates and reversion to cash, demonstrating that account opening alone is insufficient without products designed for low and variable incomes.

• In 2014, Côte d'Ivoire had registered over 9 million mobile money accounts and $2.4 billion in deposits — yet almost half of all accounts were inactive (no transactions in 90 days). Among those surveyed by the IFC, 43.6% cited irregular income as the main reason for inactivity, and a further 15% cited high prices as the reason for reverting to cash.Customers with irregular incomes do not see mobile accounts as a convenient means of serving their everyday needs when they do not see themselves as having spare money. (IFC, 2018) 
• The FinAccess Survey 2024 in Kenya found that financial constraints are a pervasive barrier across all financial products: 90.5% of those who stopped saving cited current financial constraints and 18.2% cited income loss; 46.2% of those who stopped using a SACCO said they could not afford to maintain their account; and 51.2% of those who stopped investing said they could no longer afford to do so. Meanwhile, 70.5% of Kenyan households lack any insurance coverage, with irregular incomes and the inability to sustain fixed premium payments cited as key drivers. (FSD Kenya/CBK, FinAccess 2024)

Women’s concentration in low-paid, informal, and unpaid work translates directly into lower incomes, which in turn reduces their capacity to afford both financial services and the devices needed to access them. As DFS shifts toward smartphone-based apps and internet-enabled services, this cost barrier operates upstream of financial access entirely, excluding women before they can engage with any product.

• Income may predict phone ownership more strongly than gender does: while women and poorer adults are both less likely to own phones, it is poverty that drives the gap most. This has implications for how solutions are designed: addressing income inequality is as important as gender-targeted product features. (The Global Findex, 2025)
• Making digital devices less expensive — through product design, innovative pricing models, or subsidies — will be key to equitably increasing digital and financial access. The cost of financial services can be reduced if consumers have the tools and information to compare prices and select the most affordable and relevant products and services. (The Global Findex, 2025)