Despite decades of financial inclusion efforts, barriers preventing access to financial services continue to exist for individuals across the globe. One such critical barrier, is the lack of an official, foundational form of identification.

An estimated one billion people worldwide are unable to prove their identity, while millions more have forms of ID that cannot be reliably verified. The result is exclusion from social and political rights, and from the economic opportunities that come with engagement in the digital economy.

If implemented properly, Digital ID can act as the first step towards financial empowerment and a critical enabler for poverty reduction – opening the door to secure transactions, retrieval of aid and benefit payments, access to mortgages and the opportunity to invest for the future.

At FTT Identity, a panel of experts from the World Bank, G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion and United Bank, Pakistan brought together a wealth of knowledge of this crucial topic. Some very real experiences were shared, giving a real insight into the true day to day impact of a lack of secure identity for the millions around the world who are excluded.

The panel showed the audience that we all have so much still to learn of how circumstances, culture, religious beliefs and so many more factors can have an impact. The powerful session is available to watch in full below, it will no doubt leave you with lots of to think about around how we all can do better.

The following Rockstar speakers featured in this session:

• Sharmista Appaya, Senior Financial Sector Expert, The World Bank
• Ritesh Jain, Advisor, G20, Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion
• Muhammad Sajjad, Executive Vice President, Head of Digital Transformation & Payments, United Bank
• Sian Williams, Director of Innovation and Policy, Toynbee Hall (moderator)