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Half the world is unbanked. The unbanked do not use any type of formal financial service at all. Why? What has kept the poor from opening formal bank accounts to save for retirement, from getting health insurance or loans to build new businesses? The assumption used to be that the poor lacked the resources and needs. In Chapter 2, though, we saw that the poor can and do use a wide array of financial services, but largely rely on informal means. If hundreds of millions of people want these services, why do not banks and insurance companies offer them? Why does nearly everyone in Finland, Singapore and Australia have bank accounts, but more than 95% of people in Turkmenistan, Niger and Cambodia do not?