Leaving No One Behind: Advancing Disability-Inclusive Finance

Background & Rationale

Financial inclusion has transformed the lives of millions through access to savings, credit, payments, and other financial services. Yet, persons with disabilities—representing 16% of the global population—remain among the most financially excluded groups due to barriers such as inaccessible physical and digital channels, lack of accessible information, non-inclusive products and services, and lack of staff trained to serve their needs.

Rooted in the Sustainable Development Goals' “Leave No One Behind” principle, disability inclusion is gaining prominence within ESG and social impact agendas. Yet it remains largely overlooked in the financial inclusion sector due to limited awareness and a lack of practical implementation frameworks. By embedding accessibility and universal design, financial institutions can better serve this underserved market, while improving overall customer experience and strengthening their social impact.

Recognizing this gap, Cerise+SPTF and Barrier-Free Finance Initiative (BFFI), supported by ADA, have developed two complementary resources to support financial services providers (FSPs) to better serve persons with disabilities.

These resources, developed in consultation with stakeholders across the disability and inclusive finance sectors, represent an important step towards mainstreaming disability inclusion within existing inclusive finance frameworks.

Explore the resources

Both guides, along with the individual chapters of the BFFI Disability Inclusion Guide, are available in our Resource Center. Explore the collection below.

The two resources are complementary and can be used together or independently to support financial service providers at different stages of their disability inclusion journey.

1. Cerise+SPTF’s SEPM Guide – Disability Inclusion Focus:

This version of Cerise+SPTF’s Social and Environmental Performance Management (SEPM) Guide is designed to help financial institutions to advance disability inclusion as part of their existing social performance frameworks, by:

• Integrating disability inclusion indicators within the Universal Standards for Social and Environmental Performance Management (USSEPM).

• Providing guidance notes on good practices for disability inclusion.

• Linking to external resources and case studies, and referencing BFFI’s Disability Inclusion Guide for FSPs for more detailed implementation guidance.

2. BFFI’s Disability Inclusion Guide for Financial Services Providers

Provides a comprehensive, practical guidance for FSPs at all stages of their disability inclusion journey, including:

• An introduction to the core principles of disability inclusion.

• A summary of the business case for disability-inclusive finance, and applicable legal, regulatory and financial sector frameworks;.

• Practical guidance and resources for implementation across seven key building blocks for disability inclusion:

- Strategy and culture

- Management frameworks

- Accessibility

- Inclusive products and services

- Client protection

- Inclusive employment

- Partnerships

This guide can be used as a stand-alone resource by FSPs developing or strengthening disability-inclusive practices, or alongside the SEPM Guide to support integration of disability inclusion within social performance management systems.

What These Resources Offer

Together, these resources provide practical tools to help financial institutions:

• Create or strengthen disability inclusion strategies;

• Improve accessibility of products, services and delivery channels;

• Engage persons with disabilities and their representative organizations;

• Collect and use disability-disaggregated data; and

• Integrate disability inclusion within social impact goals and monitoring frameworks.