Eliminating poverty in rural areas by 2020 is the most difficult task facing China's efforts to comprehensively build a moderately well-off society. In 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council issued the Decision on Winning the Fight Against Poverty. The Central Committee of CPC and the State Council have also attached great importance to the development of financial inclusion, as evidenced by the Plan for Advancing the Development of Financial Inclusion (2016–2020), issued by the State Council at the end of 2015. The Research Institute of Finance, under the Development Research Center of the State Council, has long tracked the development of rural finance in China and paid attention to the new trends and new problems facing the development of rural financial inclusion. As a leading global payments technology company, Visa has rich practical experience in promoting global financial inclusion, and has committed to fulfilling the World Bank Group's “Universal Financial Access by 2020” by providing payment accounts for 500 million people without financial services by 2020. Furthermore, Visa actively promotes financial inclusion in poverty-stricken areas of China through research, financial education, and capacity building. Teaming up to fully leverage their respective advantages in promoting China’s efforts to win the battle against poverty, the Development Research Center of the State Council and Visa signed a research cooperation memorandum in March 2018 to jointly research the role of digital finance in boosting poverty alleviation efforts. This report represents the outcomes of this cooperative project from 2018 – 2019.

Download the full report：Driving Poverty Alleviation through Digital Financial Inclusion