Reference:
https://www.refworld.org/policy/strategy/unhcr/2024/en/148761
Online Marketplace Project Snapshot
Securing Financial Inclusion for Forcibly Displaced and Stateless People
Europe
Securing Financial Inclusion for Forcibly Displaced and Stateless People
Apatride Network
100,000 USD
More than 12 months
Promoting financial and economic inclusion, and enhancing self-reliance, such as expressed in such pledges as GRF-08571, GRF-07718, GRF-00556
SDG 1 (Target 1.4, equal rights and access to financial services), SDG 8 (Target 8.3, promote inclusion for economic growth and financial access), SDG 10 (Target 10.2, empower and promote the social and economic inclusion of all, irrespective of race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status), SDG 17 (Target 17.17, promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships)
- Action 11: Ensure stateless persons can enjoy their rights
Stateless and forcibly displaced people in the EU and UK face widespread and unjustified barriers to accessing basic financial services such as opening a bank account. Despite safeguards like EBA guidance, the EU’s Payment Accounts Directive, and the UK’s JMLSG Guidance, many institutions still refuse service due to low awareness, limited understanding of identification documents, poor staff training, and inconsistent implementation of Anti-Money Laundering and Know-Your-Customer rules. This exclusion restricts people’s ability to work, rent housing, receive payments, and live independently. Apatride Network’s project addresses this by exposing discriminatory practices, promoting compliance with existing rules, and fostering cooperation between financial institutions, civil society, and affected communities.
The project seeks to ensure that stateless and forcibly displaced people can access banking and financial services on a fair basis. It aims to shift institutions away from discriminatory practices toward full compliance with EU and UK legal frameworks such as the Payment Accounts Directive and JMLSG Guidance. The goal is systemic change: better-trained financial institutions that recognize diverse identification forms, stronger integration of stateless-led and refugee-led expertise into policymaking, and consistent financial inclusion becoming standard practice. Ultimately, the project works to transform financial access from a privilege into a guaranteed right, strengthening equality, self-reliance, and social participation.
Apatride Network has completed the project’s research phase with PILnet and law firm partners, including interviews with stateless and forcibly displaced people across 19 EU countries and the UK documenting real-life barriers to financial access. These insights shape the project’s advocacy and policy recommendations to ensure actions reflect lived experience. The next phase focuses on partnership-building and advocacy to promote adoption of improved policies and good practices identified through the research. Key partners include PILnet, law firm partners, NGOs including Global Alliance members, UNHCR Geneva, and additional organisations to be engaged. Once partnerships are strengthened, outreach will begin to financial institutions that demonstrated good practices to explore how these can be expanded and replicated. A ten-page report and executive summary have already been prepared.
Stateless, refugees, and other forcibly displaced people facing barriers to financial inclusion.
Financial institutions having such barriers and needing good practices.
100,000 USD
100,000 USD
Why this project needs your support
Members of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness are driving innovative projects around the world, and we invite you to be part of this vital work. This snapshot gives you a brief look at one such initiative that needs your support. By contributing to projects like this, you can help create lasting change, uplift communities, and restore dignity to millions of people. Your involvement is crucial – together, we can turn the tide and build a future where statelessness is a thing of the past.
How to support
To support this initiative, please contact the Global Alliance Secretariat at stalliance@unhcr.org.
Together, we can turn the tide against statelessness and create a world where everyone enjoys their right to a nationality, and can fully contribute to society.
Disclaimer: The listing of snapshots on the Online Marketplace or inclusion in the offline repository, and their pitching to potential donors by the Global Alliance Secretariat, does not represent an endorsement by the Global Alliance, its members, or UNHCR as the Secretariat of the Global Alliance. All due diligence, background checks, and financial or legal accountability considerations are the sole responsibility of the donors concerned and should be conducted in accordance with their own regulations and requirements. The Global Alliance and its Secretariat do not endorse, participate in, or bear any legal or financial responsibility for the funding agreements or their implementation. For clarifications and additional information, please contact the Global Alliance Secretariat at stalliance@unhcr.org