Dear partners and practitioners,

We wanted to write and thank you all for your ongoing support, dedication, and collaboration with Innovations for Poverty Action’s Financial Inclusion Program. As you know, we’re dedicated to developing rigorous evidence on what works (and what doesn’t) to create inclusive, responsible, and safe access to financial services for the poorest around the world.

It’s been a busy year—we’ve worked on countless projects; published two working papers, five reports, and eleven blogs; and hosted ten webinars and three convenings. October was a particularly busy month, as we maxed out our contributions to Financial Inclusion Week! I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I’m pleased to share all the links for you to review at your convenience—you can see them all here.

And, for those of you who like to soak up your knowledge audibly, on the same page we’ve tried using NotebookLM to generate a podcast summarizing our work. Of course, like most AI-generated content, you should take everything with a pinch of salt, and try not to laugh out loud at the biggest hallucinations, but we’re impressed by how well this does at summarizing our work, based on a single prompt and a list of URLs. Imagine what we can do with these tools to enhance inclusive financial systems and protect consumers!

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and inclusive 2025, with more evidence and less poverty.

Yours sincerely,
IPA’s Financial Inclusion Program