Risk Management in Financial Inclusion

Dear Colleagues,

Ensuring easy access to and the availability of basic financial services for the entire population remains an unsolved global challenge. This situation is aggravated for the vulnerable/poorest people, for whom financial intermediaries face greater problems of asymmetric information due to the lack of trusted economic data sources and technological infrastructure alongside a weaker socio-cultural environment. Indeed, commercial banks have gradually/decidedly driven away the provision of financial services to vulnerable people, bringing about a market niche covered by microfinance, whose raison d'être is to alleviate poverty through financial inclusion and funding the entrepreneurial initiatives of unbanked citizens.

However, providing financial services to the unbanked population involves relevant and rising risks for any financial intermediary since they must continuously measure and balance the following as a minimum: (i) higher costs associated with serving the more vulnerable population, (ii) operational efficiency, (iii) assumed credit risks, and (iv) the financial self-sustainability of the business model. To efficiently address the problem of financial inclusion, financial intermediaries are implementing the most advanced technological tools and financial innovations, such as digital payments, mobile banking, digital and peer-to-peer loans, solidarity group lending, financial education platforms, and mobile offices for in-person access in remote rural areas.

This Special Issue aims to collect the recent results in the research area of risk management in financial inclusion and its implications for financial institutions and the unbanked population. We invite papers presenting original research on related topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Models for risk management adapted to the unbanked population.
2. Innovations for the financial inclusion improvement rate.
3. Trade-offs between financial inclusion and risk-taking by financial institutions.
4. Fintech, financial inclusion, and financial stability.
5. The social risk management of financial inclusion and financial well-being in old age.
6. Corporate governance and risk-taking by non-profit financial institutions.

Dr. Antonio Blanco-Oliver
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Risks is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• financial inclusion
• credit risk
• microfinance
• financial sustainability
• unbanked citizens
• financial well-being
• Fintech
• rural areas