Leveraging Blockchain for Financial Inclusion and Economic Empowerment

Abstract

Blockchain also has the advantage of improving financial accessibility and economic enfranchisement by offering safe, transparent and easy to access financial services to the underbanked. This paper examines how blockchain can help overcome key challenges that hinder financial inclusion such as high cost of transactions, poor trust in conventional financial institutions, and a lack of proximity to banking facilities. Blockchain technology through decentralized ledgers, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency facilitates effective decentralization to allow for unified engagement in peer-to-peer transactions, micro-finance, and equal chances for economic opportunities. The proposed framework focuses on the architecture of blockchains at scale and new applications across digital identity, international money transfers, and communal finance. General issues within a company, such as legal requirements, capacity, and technological sophistication are referenced in relation to their solutions. Findings derived from experiments and cases from emerging economy contexts illustrate the potentially revolutionary nature of blockchain technology in facilitating economic development in integrating vulnerable and excluded groups in the economy. This research can help the policymakers, the technological experts and the interested parties who seek to employ blockchain technology for the purpose of supporting the economic uplift of the society and reducing the negative impacts of technology on them.