Speech by Queen Máxima on the occasion of the event 'Financial Inclusion 15 years of Impact', United Nations, New York, United States of America

Speech | 25-09-2024

It is with great honour that for the last 15 years I have been able to work on improving financial inclusion around the world.

In these years I have met so many women and men like Victoria, Aubrey and Manuel, that were empowered by financial inclusion, unlocking their potential, and building a better life.

With endurance and commitment, we have laid a solid foundation to reduce poverty and improve development opportunities, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.

From farmers to mothers, from shop keepers to fishermen, and from grandmothers to children. Nearly all today, have access to financial services.

From credit to buy seeds, to health insurance, from payments to strengthen the business, to savings for a new fishing net. From a grandmother's pension, to money for school tuition.

That is the difference that financial inclusion makes.

Already in 2005, we realized that credit, savings, insurance, pensions, were all equally important to help people develop themselves. But for people to have that, they needed to have an account, we needed thus to focus on Financial Inclusion.

And we all worked so hard to get that access! And in order to achieve that, we worked hard on very important building blocks:

• We got data, to track progress, make research, and be critical about our work.
• We worked hand-in-hand with regulators around the world to allow innovation that will allow us to reach people, for even the smallest of transactions and even in the most far away places.
• We got the Standard Setting Bodies to embrace Financial Inclusion, to make it their goal too, and to help us define trade offs.
• We got some amazing initial country examples, that inspired many other countries to follow.
• We have today more than 60 countries with national FI strategies that have paved the way to great progress.
• We also outlined how digital technology could help our agenda.
• In doing so, we focused on inclusion, competition, affordability, safety, security and privacy.
• Which led to the creation of the Digital Public Infrastructure notion, which is now followed by many organizations making it possible for more innovation to flourish.

And, I say 'we' not as a royal prerogative, but 'we' as in all the organisations that have worked side by side with me and my office: the UN, the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, AFI, IFC, IMF, Mastercard, Flourish, the CEO’s of countless firms, the Basel community, CGAP… We worked seamessly together, in every visit to every country, in every report that was written, in every policy note. We spoke with one voice.

So this agenda has been a huge success. Before I started, of course we had no data, but we were I guess well under the 50%, and today ladies and gentleman, we are above 80%. Something WE should be very proud of.

Of course 80% plus is not 100%, so work still need to be done to reach 1.5 bn more people that remained unbanked. Therefore I am extremely happy that we have a Call to Action where all the partners are committing to reach half by 2030. 
I look forward to the commitment of many countries too.

But it is also very important to realise that access and usage is not enough.

Access to financial services is only the first step.

We have built the rails, now what we really want to accomplish, is that households everywhere in the world have the right financial tools to manage their day-to-day expenses, invest in their future, and protect themselves against shocks like illness, a job loss or climate-related events.

This is what I call 'Financial Health'

For example, are we really helping people to better save, to build a buffer in case of emergencies, or for future opportunities? In the case of Audrey, she had the credit to invest in her shop and increase her income, but she had no health insurance, and having a child with health problems, any health drawback still leads to huge financial distress for her…even probably losing her shop.

Also, too much access to certain types of credit could lead to overindebtness! Could we, for example, instead of promoting Buy Now Pay Later schemes, build more on Save Now Buy Later and avoid painful debt traps? And if we speak about inclusion and equality, in the Netherlands, women have 40% less pension than the men….they have access to pension, they are financially included but they are still not really financially independent later in their life.

This is as relevant in the developing countries as it is in the developed world, so in Kenya, India and Mexico, but also here in the States and in my country The Netherlands.

If we want to contribute to the financial health of people and society, we need to change our products, in a way that fit people’s complex financial lives.

These great examples in Tanzania, Colombia and Philippines, show that with commitment we can design products that really make a difference.

This will be my new focus for the coming years.

So that people like Manuel, Victoria and Aubrey can not only dream about a better future, but really build one.

I look forward to this new journey with all the partners. And I would like to thank them, my partners-in-crime, for a wonderful journey these last 15 years. I would also like to thank the SG and UNDP for their trust. Last but not lease, I would like to thank my country The Netherlands for their support all the way, Prime Ministers, Ministers, advisors, friends and of course, my wonderful family.

Thank you so much.