Serving Refugee Populations - The Next Financial Inclusion Frontier: Guidelines for Financial Service Providers

These guidelines seek to examine why refugee populations are financially excluded and how financial service providers (FSPs) can successfully reach and serve this untapped financial market segment.

While the guidelines specifically intend to present refugee populations through the lens of financial service providers as potential clients, they do not attempt to address all aspects of an FSP’s engagement with a new client segment. Rather, they focus on the unique aspects of serving refugees, based on questions and concerns emerging from the research and interviews with experts and practitioners. The study aims to do the following:

• Compare emerging global research on the economic lives of refugee populations with common concerns expressed by the financial service industry, in order to explain why refugees are financially excluded;
• Present six concrete steps that FSPs can take in preparation for serving refugee clients in addition to nationals;
• Summarize emerging good practices from FSPs who are serving refugees, to provide recommendations and tips for FSPs as they begin to build the business case for financial inclusion of refugees.