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This session marks the first public release of findings from an IFC-led survey across eight banks in Asia and the Pacific, where 45% of bank employees reported witnessing financial abuse in their communities. These insights—gathered from over 7,000 bank staff across ten countries—offer a rare and urgent look into how financial abuse is playing out in real time, and how banking products and systems are being misused to cause harm.

For banks and regulators, financial abuse is emerging as a critical frontier—one that intersects with regulatory responsibility, institutional trust, and inclusive economic participation. The cost of inaction is multifaceted: absorbing preventable loan defaults, incurring operational inefficiencies, risking reputational damage, and ultimately failing to protect customers and employees from financial harm.

Yet when action is taken, financial institutions can strengthen trust and reinforce the integrity of the financial system.

Hosted by IFC, this session brings together experts in financial abuse prevention and two banks participating in IFC’s Empower Finance Alliance: Laxmi Sunrise (Nepal) and Commercial Bank (Sri Lanka), to explore how the financial sector is stepping up through policy, practice, and product design to address financial abuse. It will examine how institutions can move from awareness to action, and how this new data can inform scalable, context-specific solutions.

Key Themes:

·       What the data tells us—and why it matters now

·       How banks are responding through Empower Finance

·       What regulators and financial institutions can do next

·       Why this issue is central to financial inclusion and institutional integrity.