Financial inclusion for persons with disabilities: experiences of providers and users of financial products and services in Kenya
Summary
This article presents a qualitative study looking into the experiences of providing and using financial products and services from the perspectives of people with disabilities and representatives of financial institutions. Participants described a mixed picture, sharing experiences of different levels of inclusion, and examples of exclusion from different types of financial services and products.
Findings showed that financial institutions lacked knowledge and skills to adapt existing services for people with disabilities. People with disabilities reported embracing digital financial services and constituted a large untapped market for the financial institutions.
The article recommends multistakeholder approaches to increase disability awareness, develop and enforce policies and guidelines as well as collection of disability-disaggregated data to promote financial inclusion for people with disabilities in Kenya.