The World Bank's Global Findex 2025 counts 1.3 billion adults without a financial account. Roughly 900 Mn of them own a mobile phone; about 530 million carry a smartphone. Half the world's unbanked live in just eight economies - five of them OIC member states. So, arguably, distribution is largely solved. What isn't solved is underwriting someone with no credit file, no collateral and no formal income - and doing it within Shariah constraints that rule out the interest-rate pricing conventional risk models are built on. That is where AI earns its keep, or doesn't. This panel makes the case for technology as the engine of shared prosperity and is honest about the part that's still hard.
