Bridging the financial services divide

An example of how we are incorporating the “S” factor is structuring sustainable and impact investments that are designed to provide economically disadvantaged people – especially those in developing countries – with access to financial services. By providing these essential services, we believe that we can help unlock inclusive growth. We offer higher education structured notes solutions that are designed to provide funding to talented students from frontier markets to get loans for advanced education, the majority of whom have no alternative source of funding.

We are a member of the European Microfinance Platform, a network of about 130 organizations, and have a seat on its board. We are also part of the Swiss Capacity Building Facility, a public-private partnership between the Swiss financial sector and the Swiss Agency for Development Collaboration (SDC). Our Financial Inclusion Initiative (FII) helps to drive market development and innovation in this sector. We support the development of new products and services focusing on themes such as education, agriculture and gender diversity. We also make the expertise of our employees available to our Financial Inclusion and impact and SDG-oriented thematic investing partners through several volunteering programs, and we invest in early-stage innovation and financial technology (fintech) through our partnership with Accion’s financial technology accelerator Venture Lab.