Bringing more than 70% of Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC) population into the financial system – up from just 50% in 2017 – stands as one of the region's most significant transformations in recent years. This progress demonstrates how LAC is emerging as a leading hub of financial innovation. Yet, the question remains: what steps will shape the future of finance in the region?

At the FinnLAC Forum 2025, James Scriven, CEO of IDB Invest, emphasized that after progress in financial access, the next priority must be strengthening financial health. "It's how we can address all day-to-day financial aspects of a company and an individual, and this is more than just access."  

Fintech innovators, bankers, regulators, and other financial sector leaders agreed that the focus is now shifting to financial health – helping individuals better manage emergencies, build long-term savings, prepare for retirement, secure housing, and navigate all aspects of finance. This is customer centricity in action.

Hyper-Personalized Financial Services

From left to right: Marisela Alvarenga (IDB Invest), Anderson Caputo (IDB), Marcelo Cabrol (IDB Lab).

As digital innovation accelerates, the financial industry is entering a new era of hyper-personalization. During the panel, The Future of Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean, Marisela Alvarenga, managing director and chief of the Financial Sector at IDB Invest, stated that the sector has the potential to move beyond basic access and begin leveraging the abundance of data to "hyper-personalize the products and services for people." This represents a shift from market segmentation towards a model in which everyone is treated as a unique segment. 

Marcelo Cabrol, chief of strategy at IDB Lab, emphasized that accelerating this transition depends on creating the right conditions to support more early-stage opportunities and "enlarge the capacity" of companies to deliver a broader range of personalized, low-cost products that expand financial access and foster resilience across the region – recognizing that innovation often starts small and must be nurtured to grow. 

Building Smarter Finance Through Technology 

From left to right: Javier Suárez (Davivienda Bank), Ana María Ibáñez (IDB). 

During the panel, The Pulse of Progress, Javier Suárez, president of Davivienda Bank – one of Colombia's leading innovators among incumbent financial institutions – explained how technology can help banks better serve entrepreneurs and small businesses. "It gives us the ability to understand what an entrepreneur or small business does truly and to serve them based on new data," he said.

Ana María Ibáñez, vice president for Sectors and Knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and moderator of the discussion, added that this new wave of data could help financial institutions refine credit scoring and expand lending to more small business owners. 

The Power of Digital Public Infrastructures 

From left to right: James Scriven (CEO, IDB Invest), Michael Schlein (Accion).

Digital public infrastructures (DPIs) are crucial components in better serving those who still lack access to the formal financial system. At the FinnLac Forum 2025, Michael Schlein, president and CEO of Accion, a global investor, underscored its importance and shared replicable lessons for the region.  

Specifically, Schlein highlighted Brazil and India as innovative leaders in digital public infrastructures, encouraging financial leaders and regulators to look to these models and develop their own versions of fast, real-time payment systems, universal biometric IDs, and open banking. Three building blocks that Schlein considers "will open up extraordinary innovation." 

During the event, the IDB Group launched IDB Pay, an initiative designed to help countries develop public digital infrastructure. The initiative will support the rollout of interoperable, low-cost, real-time payment systems, such as BRE-B, Colombia's official instant payment system.

"We provided technical assistance for regulation and competition. We supported them all the way, and the system instantly started with 32 million accounts and 84 million keys on the first day," said Anderson Caputo, division chief of the IDB's Connectivity, Markets, and Finance Division, during his remarks at the event. 

Building the Future of Finance  

The FinnLAC Forum 2025 encouraged industry leaders to shape a financial ecosystem that measures success by people's well-being.  

Fintech innovators, incumbent banks, regulators, and development institutions agreed on the importance of strengthening collaboration to develop regulatory frameworks and coordinate actions around innovative products designed to meet the everyday financial needs of individuals and small businesses.

The event's discussions also centered around the role that technology, data, and innovation have to create an ecosystem where more individuals and small enterprises can benefit from a wide range of financial solutions, essential for strengthening financial resilience and building confidence in their ability to plan long-term investments, thereby boosting productivity and ultimately driving sustainable economic development across Latin America and the Caribbean.

FinnLAC 2025 showed that Latin America and the Caribbean is ready to move from expanding access to strengthening financial health and resilience. The challenge now is to turn the region's growing leadership in financial innovation into solutions that improve people's daily financial lives – a task that will require collaboration across the entire ecosystem. With the right conditions, LAC can convert its innovation momentum into a financial system that truly works for everyone.