BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 10. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has launched a new risk-sharing initiative aimed at helping banks, fintech companies and other financial institutions in emerging markets expand access to digital payment services.
According to information provided by IFC, the initiative will initially provide up to $700 million in guarantees to cover part of the credit settlement risk faced by financial institutions participating in global payment ecosystems.
IFC said financial institutions in some emerging markets face financial requirements that limit their ability to provide digital payment services, leaving millions of consumers and local businesses dependent on cash.
The new initiative is designed to address these constraints and enable more banks and fintechs to offer reliable and innovative digital payment services, particularly to small businesses, women entrepreneurs and people who have historically had limited access to formal financial services.
“Expanding digital payments in emerging markets is one of the most powerful tools to create jobs and bring people into the formal economy,” said IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop.
“When a small business owner or woman entrepreneur accepts a card payment, it opens the door to more customers, more revenue, and a foothold in the digital economy,” he added.
Diop noted that financial requirements continue to limit the ability of many banks and fintechs to expand digital payment services.
“This initiative changes that, helping businesses expand, create jobs, and bring digital payment services to those who have been left behind,” he said.
IFC expects the initiative to boost competition in the payments sector while improving the quality and accessibility of digital payment services.
According to IFC estimates, participating financial institutions could see digital payment volumes increase by around $280 billion. The initiative is also expected to support the issuance of 360 million additional cards and increase the number of active users by 90 million, including 39 million women.
IFC is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. It operates in more than 100 countries and provides capital, expertise and influence to help create markets and opportunities in developing economies.
In fiscal 2025, IFC committed a record $71.7 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, while also mobilizing private capital for development.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s The Global Findex Database 2025 shows that across low- and middle-income economies, 61 percent of adults, or 82 percent of account owners, made or received a digital payment in 2024, a 27 percentage point increase from 2014. Digital payments are the most popular formal financial service, used by twice as many adults as saved formally and by three times as many as borrowed formally. Use of digital merchant payments—payments made by retail customers to businesses in stores or online—grew to 42 percent of all adults in 2024, up from 35 percent in 2021, with variations by region (refer to figure ES.5). The share of adults making such payments more than doubled in some economies, including Cameroon, the Kyrgyz Republic, Paraguay, and Viet Nam, and showed widespread adoption in Kazakhstan, Kenya, and Mongolia
Government and wage payments likewise continued their trend toward digitalization. About 75 percent of recipients of government payments in low- and middle-income economies5 received their government wage, pension, or social transfer payments directly in accounts. Half of private-sector wage recipients did likewise.
