Accion

Our vision is to build a financially inclusive world with access to economic opportunity for all.
Our mission is to give people the financial tools they need to improve their lives, meaning :
• The availability of a full suite of financial services, including credit, savings, insurance, and payments
• Provided with quality, in a convenient, affordable, and suitable manner that protects and upholds the dignity of the client
• To everyone who can use financial services and who is ‘financially capable’– that is, informed and able to make good decisions about their use of these services
• And delivered in a diverse and competitive marketplace of financial service providers

Accion is a global nonprofit that combines decades of on-the-ground experience in what the poor need with insights into new technologies to:
Accelerate social and economic progress: We use double-bottom line investing, pursuing altruistic goals through commercial means to help more families and businesses realize their economic potential.
Create catalytic, industry-shaping change: We work to increase the quality and reduce the costs of financial products and services.
Build permanent, scalable, and sustainable institutions: To meet peoples’ needs over the long-term, we must create enduring, vibrant, and viable financial institutions that compete for and win their clients’ business.
Harness the capital markets: To create solutions that reach billions of financially underserved clients over the course of their lives, we need to attract private capital – and therefore pay a return on that capital. This means engaging third-party investors, and it means exits for investors with appropriate ROI in due course.

As a non-profit, Accion’s unique approach to financial inclusion combines advisory solutions, impact investing, client advocacy, research, and industry partnerships.
Accion’s advisory services, targeted coaching, support, and governance help financial service providers deliver the high-quality, affordable financial tools and services that create a world with economic opportunity for all.
We make equity and quasi-equity investments in companies that expand, improve, and accelerate financial inclusion around the globe. Our investment initiatives include Accion Global Investments, Accion Venture Lab, and Accion Frontier Investments.
We partner with organizations to sustain our work developing new products, new markets, and new policies.
Our thought leadership, influence, and advocacy efforts challenge and engage the industry, its leaders, and its regulators to achieve a financially inclusive world. The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion – an action-oriented think tank – develop insights, advocates on behalf of clients, and collaborates with stakeholders to achieve a comprehensive vision for financial inclusion.

For nearly 60 years, Accion has helped tens of millions of people through our work with more than 160 partners in 55 countries.
In 2019, for example, we:
• Significantly increased our support for innovation. Through Accion Venture Lab and the Accion Frontier Investments portfolio, managed by Quona Capital, we made impact investments in new financial technologies that allow us to offer better, faster, and more affordable services to the underserved.
• Launched a new $23M fund through Accion Venture Lab. The fund brings together a group of third-party impact and commercial investors that share Venture Lab’s commitment to innovative fintech startups that leverage technology to increase the reach, quality, and affordability of financial services for the underserved at scale.
• Grew our partnership with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. Seven partners around the world have now joined our ongoing program with Mastercard, which seeks to drive the digital transformation of millions of microbusinesses and the financial institutions that serve them.
• Produced research, advocated for clients, and collaborated with stakeholders to help vulnerable households, businesses, and financial service providers recover from crisis and build resilience. The foundations laid in 2019 enabled the Center for Financial Inclusion to rapidly respond to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic both within its own research agenda and as a convening organization for the sector.