Author: OurCrowd

Below is an excerpt from OurCrowd’s Q1 Innovation Insider, which you can download here. Life without banking and credit cards in 2019 can feel like a real stretch of the imagination, but for many across the globe — from the developing world to the United States — it is very real. No credit score means no financial history. No financial history means no lease. No lease means no mortgage, ever. No credit card means no e-commerce. No bank account means high fees for every cash checked. The obstacles go on and on. As the saying goes, it is expensive to be poor. The unbanked and underbanked are people who mostly use cash because they either do not have access to banking services or choose to steer clear of them. These groups are composed of all kinds of people. There are nearly 1.7 billion people in the world who are unbanked, or 31% of adults. Most of this group is found in the developing world, where many adults have limited access to smartphones, computers, or internet connections and thus often...