24 Sept 2026
The Compass 2026 draws on 182 responses from 55 countries, exploring current trends and challenges, the changing funding landscape, the implications of AI, and priorities for financial inclusion over the coming decade.
The Financial Inclusion Compass is e-MFP’s annual survey of the financial inclusion sector. Launched in 2018, it was created to take the ‘pulse’ of the sector by asking practitioners, providers, investors, policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders what they see as the most important trends, challenges and priorities shaping inclusive finance.
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The Compass combines quantitative rankings with qualitative insights, providing a snapshot of sector opinion at a particular moment. Its value lies not only in identifying areas of consensus, but in revealing differences between stakeholder groups, changes in priorities over time, and emerging issues that may not yet be visible in conventional sector data.
What's New
Besides the brand new interactive layout we have also introduced several new questions to reflect how the landscape has changed. Respondents were asked specifically about AI – both where it can and does add most value and where its greatest risks lie. We added a section on the changing funding landscape, including where respondents expect future capital for financial inclusion to come from. And we asked them to look further ahead and identify what the sector should prioritise over the next five to ten years.