A joint study by PwC, one of the world's largest professional services networks, and Stellar, a blockchain network built for payments, has examined how blockchain technology could expand access to financial services and improve service quality across four developing economies: Argentina, the Philippines, Colombia, and Kenya. The research covers savings, remittances, business payments, and peer-to-peer transfers, and concludes that blockchain must be useful to local financial requirements in order to be adopted. According to the findings, security and transparency alone are not enough to drive uptake — governance, regulation, and consumer protection remain vital.

The renewed interest in blockchain-based financial inclusion has drawn the attention of researchers, who assessed the potential impact of distributed ledger technology on both access and service quality in the four emerging markets examined.

PwC and Stellar Map Four Financial Use Cases

The 2023 study by PwC and Stellar assessed four use cases across four countries. Its findings point to opportunities in access and service quality, while also identifying trust as a condition for broader adoption.

The results were shared by ALLINCRYPTO in a post discussing blockchain's financial potential. The post focuses on the quality of access and services in emerging economies and notes that transparency alone cannot build public trust.

Under the framework, Argentina was paired with savings accounts and the Philippines with remittances. The Colombia example covers payments between businesses, while the Kenya example covers domestic payments between peers. Together, the cases span household finance, cross-border transfers, and trade.

The comparison is not intended to suggest that all markets are the same. Local infrastructure, regulatory conditions, and user needs can each shape implementation, meaning an approach has to be tailored to the financial environment of each application. For providers and policymakers, that effectively rules out a single global template and favors designs built around each market's existing infrastructure and rules.

Access and Quality Depend on Practical Outcomes

The study evaluates the separate dimensions of access, quality, trust, and usage. The model looks beyond transaction speed or underlying technology, asking instead whether services can meet practical needs and attract regular use.

In Argentina, savings accounts represent a route into formal financial services, and the assessment signals strong potential for access and quality in this case. Even so, delivery models must still suit local requirements and customer circumstances.

For the Philippines, remittances bring cross-border transfers into comparison — a use case that matters directly to households receiving money sent from abroad. Blockchain may offer an additional option for sending money across borders, though its usefulness would be affected by costs, ease of access, compliance, and reliability.

Business payments in Colombia and individual payments in Kenya involve different transaction patterns and service expectations. Therefore, there is no single "best" implementation model for all applications.

Governance and Trust Determine Wider Adoption

The report cites distrust as a factor inhibiting financial account ownership. It projects that approximately 25–40% reported trust as a reason for being unbanked. This places institutional trust on the financial inclusion agenda alongside technology.

Blockchain can provide cryptographic security, transparent records, and programmable transactions. These attributes can contribute to financial services, but they do not eliminate all risk. Responsibility, protection, and service functionality remain unclear to users.

Providers can mitigate these concerns through accountable governance and transparency. Regulatory compliance also sets obligations and safeguards customers. Such practices are important even when the network itself is performing as intended. Against that backdrop, the signals to follow in these four markets are how regulators treat blockchain-based services, the governance practices providers adopt, and how consumer-protection safeguards are applied as such products move closer to everyday use.

The study defines adoption in terms of actual use cases for Stellar and other blockchain providers. It has nothing to do with token price prediction or with putting a lid on demand for XLM. Instead, it associates progress with accessible services and trustworthy institutions.

If people can use services with confidence, uptake is likely to grow. Technical capacity, in other words, must go hand in hand with oversight, service quality, and public trust.