Why Lower Fees Aren’t Enough to Achieve Real Financial Inclusion

Lower fees matter.

However, if we pretend that they’re some kind of silver bullet for financial inclusion, we’d be fooling ourselves. The reality is far more complex than affordability, and focusing solely on cost just obscures the deeper, systemic barriers that keep the 1.4 billion unbanked excluded from the global financial system. 

Genuine financial inclusion is about more than cheap versions of age-old services. It’s really about dismantling the obstacles that prevent people from accessing, controlling, and benefiting from their own money.

It’s about agency, not access.

Why Fees Are Only One Part of the Problem

High fees are undeniably a burden, especially for those sending remittances, making cross-border payments, or simply trying to manage a low income. Fortunately, the last decade has seen a rise of fintechs and neobanks that have been able to promise and deliver lower fees. That’s been a welcome trend, yet it does somewhat overlook the fundamental limitations of legacy banking infrastructure and the services built on it.

Lower fees often come with hidden costs, like restrictive account structures, unexpected fine print, or limited functionality. More critically, they fail to address the access, trust, and control issues that keep many millions of people out of the system. In 2025, people need to know that the system acknowledges their existence and is willing to give them full participation. 

WeFi, a leading Deobank looking to take a completely new approach to empowering banking, also believes that lowering fees does not offer a complete solution to accessibility or solving the hidden challenges of banking. 

Maksym Sakharov, WeFi’s Group CEO and Co-founder, explained “Imagine a single mother in a rural village, struggling to prove her identity with outdated documents. Even if a Neobank offers her a fee-free account, she’s still blocked by the initial KYC hurdle. Consider a migrant worker sending money home, facing exorbitant exchange rates and limited transfer options despite supposedly lower transaction fees. These are the hidden challenges, the invisible walls that persist even when services are technically affordable.”

The Real Barriers to Financial Inclusion

If cost is not the true barrier to financial inclusion then, what is?

The answer is that there is no single answer. In fact, it’s a combination of the following factors (besides cost) that make traditional finance inaccessible:

• KYC Barriers: Millions of people lack the formal documentation required for KYC procedures, with this disproportionately affecting refugees, migrants, informal workers, and those living in poverty. 

• Custodial Control: Even with access to banking and banking services, users often lack full control over their funds, which is a leading cause of anxiety for the unbanked and underbanked. Banks can freeze or restrict accounts arbitrarily, leaving individuals vulnerable, disempowered, and cut off from their own funds. This is why so many global citizens still choose to keep cash stuffed under the mattress.
• Infrastructure Gaps: Large swathes of the world lack reliable internet access, mobile coverage, or local banking partners, limiting access to digital financial services. However, even as more people gain access to mobile phones and the internet, that doesn’t guarantee they can open a bank account, but it does allow them to access decentralized finance. 

These factors compound on one another, creating a truly vicious cycle of exclusion for the world’s most marginalized communities. There must be a better way. Now, there is. 

How Deobanks Offer a More Inclusive Model

The type of decentralized finance (DeFi) opportunity introduced by Deobanks presents a highly compelling alternative. These are far from ordinary banks. They are blockchain-based financial systems built from the ground up to prioritize values such as flexibility, access, and user control. 

Here are some of the unique features they introduce to support genuine inclusion:

• Non-Custodial Accounts: Users will be able to choose to retain complete control over their funds through private keys, eliminating the risk of arbitrary freezes or restrictions. Alternatively, users can choose a custodial option and entrust the Deobank with their funds.

• Access to Stablecoins and Digital Tools: Deobanks provide access to fiat-currency-pegged stablecoins and other digital assets (cryptocurrencies), enabling users to transact globally without relying on traditional banks, legacy infrastructure, and local currencies. 
• On-Chain Transparency: Blockchain technology is built with inherent transparency, delivering trust and confidence, even for first-time users who may be unfamiliar with traditional financial institutions. 

The combination of these attributes signals an obvious intention to make finance accessible for the entire world. It’s a bold goal, but with blockchain technology’s democratic nature, it’s one that is feasible. 

Inclusion Should Be Defined by Autonomy, Not Just Access

Defining inclusion has led different financial institutions, fintech startups, neobanks, and financial service providers to different conclusions. The actual answer is that it’s not just about giving someone an account. Inclusion occurs when people are given true agency over their financial lives. 

Ultimately, it’s about the power to manage, move, and control their own money, free from the constraints of centralized gatekeepers, intermediaries, and middlemen. 

Now, Deobanks offer choice, not just a new, rehashed, or cheaper version of the status quo. Empowerment comes from a mixture of ownership, transparency, and flexibility, far more important attributes than price or fee reductions.

Autonomy and self-custody are set to play leading roles in meaningful financial inclusion, as explained by WeFi’s Head of Growth, Agne Linge. “They are the bedrock of meaningful financial inclusion. They shift the power dynamic, empowering individuals to participate in the financial system completely on their own terms. When people control their own assets, they are less vulnerable to exploitation, more resilient to economic shocks, and better positioned to build wealth and secure their futures. We see self-custody not as a technical feature, but as a kind of fundamental human right in the digital age.”

Building Inclusive Financial Systems

It must be said that while lowering fees is not the answer, it is certainly a step in the right direction. However, without fundamentally redesigning or overhauling the system, users would simply be getting a cheaper version with the same limitations. That would represent a pretty thin victory.

Deobanks are emerging noisily as a way to rethink access entirely, not just to those who can afford to use the system, but for the people it should have been designed for (everyone, everywhere). They essentially represent a banking shift towards inclusivity, equitability, and user-centricity in finance. 

Now seems an opportune time to redefine financial inclusion as something that is about control, access, and dignity, not just cost. If a solution fails to empower every global citizen, regardless of background or location, then it might not really be an inclusive way to participate fully in the global economy.