| PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY
| Financial inclusion interventions have very small and inconsistent impactsA wide range of financial inclusion programmes seek to increase poor people's access to financial services to enhance the welfare of poor and low-income households in low-and middle-income countries. The impacts of financial inclusion interventions are small and variable.Although some services have some positive effects for some people, overall financial inclusion may be no better than comparable alternatives, such as graduation or livelihoods interventions.
| What is this review about?Financial inclusion programmes seek to increase access to financial services such as credit, savings, insurance and money transfers and so allow poor and low-income households in low-and middle-income countries to enhance their welfare, grasp opportunities, mitigate shocks, and ultimately escape poverty. This systematic review of reviews assesses the evidence on economic, social, behavioural and gender-related outcomes from financial inclusion. 1.3 | What are the main findings of this review? 1.3.1 | What studies are included? This review includes studies that synthesise the findings of other studies (meta-studies) regarding the impacts of a range of financial inclusion interventions on economic, social, gender and behavioural outcomes. A total of 32 such meta-studies were identified, of which 11 were of sufficient methodological quality to be included in the final analysis. The review examined meta-studies from 2010 onwards that spanned the globe in terms of geographical coverage.Impacts are more likely to be positive than negative, but the effects vary, are often mixed, and appear not to be transformative in scope or scale, as they largely occur in the early stages of the causal chain of effects. Overall, the effects of financial services on core economic poverty indicators such as incomes, assets or spending, and on health status and other social outcomes, are small and inconsistent. Moreover, there is no evidence for meaningful behaviour-change outcomes leading to further positive effects.The effects of financial services on women's empowerment appear to be generally positive, but they depend upon programme features which are often only peripheral or unrelated to the financial service What is the aim of this review?This systematic review of reviews systematically collects and appraises all of the existing meta-studies-that is systematic reviews and meta-analyses-of the impact of financial inclusion.The authors first analyse the strength of the methods used in those meta-studies, then synthesize the findings from those that are of a sufficient quality, and finally, report the implications for policy, programming, practice and further research arising from the evidence. Eleven studies are included in the analysis.---