Financial Inclusion

Ignacio Giraldo, CEO of Lulo Bank, revealed that the bank reached 600,000 clients at the end of last year, adding about 13,000 new ones monthly. He emphasized the need to eliminate the usury rate to expand credit access in Colombia, where only 30% of the population has it despite 95% having deposit accounts.

January 11, 2026 Reported by AI

A recent analysis argues that decentralized finance (DeFi) has failed to fulfill its promise of banking the unbanked by merely building on top of existing traditional finance infrastructure. Instead of creating new financial rails, DeFi relies on banks, regulators, and centralized systems for its core operations. This dependency limits its accessibility to those already excluded from the system.