Open Finance Adoption and Financial Inclusion: experimental evidence from microentrepreneurs

Giorgia Barboni, Lucas Mariani, Jose Ornelas and Bernardo Ricca

No 653, Working Papers Series from Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department

Abstract: Does improving knowledge about open finance increase its adoption and lead to greater financial inclusion? We implement a randomized experiment that provides Brazilian microentrepreneurs with targeted information about open finance. The intervention increases open finance adoption by more than 7 percentage points, a 40% increase relative to a control group mean of 17%. While the intervention increases adoption broadly across the study population, the impacts are largest among firms with greater baseline digital payment (Pix) activity, consistent with lower adoption barriers for digitally engaged firms. Analysis of firm-level administrative data shows that the intervention increases the probability of having an available credit card limit by 3.6–5.1 percentage points, or approximately 5–7.5% relative to the control-group mean. Consistent with this effect, the intervention increases the probability of credit-card spending by 2.7–4.1 percentage points, equivalent to approximately 4–6% of the control-group mean. Over a six-month horizon, the intervention also increases access to credit through business bank accounts to a greater extent than through personal bank accounts, raises reliance on working capital loans by 4.8 percentage points, equivalent to 50% of the control-group mean, and the number of Pix transactions in business accounts by 15%.

Date: 2026-10
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