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MSME
Sustainable Finance
Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) are vital to economic growth, job creation, provision of goods and services, and poverty alleviation in emerging markets. MSMEs make up over 90% of all firms and account, on average, for 70% of total employment and 50% of GDP worldwide. The MSME finance gap now stands at $5.7 trillion – a number...
Machine Learning. Copyright: ShutterStock
AI is revolutionising credit risk, unlocking new possibilities, and driving innovation. The real value lies in identifying high-impact use cases that deliver measurable outcomes. While integrating AI into established processes like credit risk can be challenging, the potential is immense. Forward-thinking businesses are already seeing impressive...
AI Data. Copyright: Shuttterstock
The success of the data and AI market requires businesses to overcome the trust dilemma. In just the last two years, generative AI has already eclipsed the use of traditional AI. As the market rapidly advances to agentic AI, the impact on decision making will be pervasive, often concealed behind automation and integration. For the good of society...
AIR
Sustainable Finance
February 26 , 2026: The Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR) has joined the SME Finance Forum as the global membership network’s latest affiliate. The 250+ members/affiliates of the Forum are SME financing experts operating in 190 countries who share the common goal of expanding access to finance to small businesses worldwide through knowledge...
ANFIDC
Financial Inclusion
Washington D.C, Feb 24, 2025 – The Associação Nacional dos Participantes em Fundos de Investimentos em Direitos Creditórios (ANFIDC), representative body of the Credit Market in Brazil has joined the SME Finance Forum as the global membership network’s latest affiliate. The 250+ members/affiliates of the Forum are SME financing experts operating in...
Scaling Up Public Financial and Non-Financial Support
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are central to the green transition. As innovators, they create new sustainable technologies and solutions. They also enable the dissemination of environmentally friendly products and practices throughout the economy and integrate cleaner practices into their own operations. However, many SMEs face...
Advancing the Credit Ecosystem
This empirical white paper assesses the impacts on model predictiveness and credit access of both adopting machine learning techniques and incorporating electronic bank account information (often called cash flow data) in consumer underwriting models. The evaluation was conducted by building a series of models based on an anonymized dataset that...
MSME Finance Gap 2025
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) represent a significant part of the world economy, and are one of the strongest drivers of economic development, innovation and employment. Access to finance is frequently identified as a critical barrier to growth for MSMEs.This report re-estimates the finance gap pertaining to Micro, Small and Medium...
The Next Wave Arrives
Non Financial Services
This report provides an overview of agentic artificial intelligence (AAI) applications—dynamic AI systems that can be structured to respond to new information and make and execute decisions without ongoing human engagement—as adoption accelerates in financial services and e-commerce. In addition to simplifying and personalizing online shopping and...
Cover-Devising a strategic approach to AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significant potential to help drive economic development and poverty reduction in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). AI—including traditional and generative AI (GenAI)—is a tool that can help foster resilient, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth (Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial...