Beyond Access: Building financial systems that truly include everyone

A/Prof Shahriar Abu Zafar and Dr Amale Scally, 2026

Purpose

Despite significant progress in expanding access to financial services, many disadvantaged populations remain unable to participate fully in economic life. Women may hold financial accounts but have limited influence over household financial decisions. People with disability may encounter attitudinal barriers within financial institutions or face inaccessible digital financial technologies. These challenges demonstrate that financial inclusion requires more than access to financial products; it requires financial systems to be designed around the needs, capabilities and lived experiences of the people they are intended to serve. Within the Opportunity Tech Lab's Financial Inclusion Research Program, Abu Zafar Shahriar and Amale Scally work with interdisciplinary collaborators, governments, financial institutions and organisations of persons with disabilities to develop and evaluate evidence-based innovations that make financial systems more inclusive.

Practice

The program brings together behavioural science, banking and finance, rehabilitation, digital accessibility and implementation research to address barriers operating at multiple levels of the financial system. One stream focuses on organisational change through Breaking Attitudinal Barriers, a professional capability-building program that enables financial institutions to identify and address attitudinal barriers affecting customers with disability. Implemented initially with Prime Bank PLC in Bangladesh, the program combines disability awareness, lived experience and behavioural change principles to strengthen disability-inclusive banking practices, and is now being scaled through partnerships with the central banks of Bangladesh and Fiji, and Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Indonesia, extending its application from organisational transformation to national and regional capacity building. A second stream addresses household barriers through Together We Decide (TWD), a couple-based Behaviour Change Communication intervention embedded within routine microfinance delivery, developed in partnership with Bangladeshi microfinance organisations, strengthening women's financial agency by improving household communication, joint financial decision-making and reducing financial abuse. A third stream examines digital accessibility through People with Disability Inclusiveness Magnifier, a participatory research programme investigating how people with visual impairment experience mobile financial services, combining evidence synthesis with cognitive walkthroughs and co-design workshops to identify accessibility barriers and generate user-centred recommendations.

Output

Collectively, these projects have generated interdisciplinary research, practical implementation models, and strong partnerships with central banks, commercial banks, microfinance institutions, technology researchers and disability organisations across Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia and Australia. The research has also produced evidence-informed training programmes, co-designed behavioural interventions, and practical design recommendations for improving accessibility and inclusion.

Outcome

The program has strengthened the capability of financial institutions to deliver more inclusive services, informed the development of interventions that support women's financial agency, and generated new evidence to guide the design of accessible digital financial technologies. Importantly, each project has been developed collaboratively with end users and implementing organisations, ensuring that research findings translate directly into professional practice and service innovation.

Impact

Together, these projects demonstrate how behavioural, institutional and technological innovation can transform financial inclusion from a question of access into one of meaningful participation. By working alongside governments, financial institutions, technology partners and community organisations, the programme is contributing to more accessible, equitable and responsive financial systems that enable disadvantaged populations to participate more fully in economic life.