The Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) is an independent think tank housed at Accion that works to better serve, protect and empower clients.

The Center works through a collaborative business model: it forms or connects with groups of key industry participants who come together to address selected challenges. Working with those groups, it applies the most appropriate tools from a toolbox that includes convening, research, publications, campaigns, piloting and knowledge-dissemination. In selecting its program areas, CFI seeks out areas that have a strong fit with its vision of financial inclusion—particularly its emphasis on quality.  It looks for aspects of that vision that have been under-addressed by others and where CFI may have a comparative advantage based on its industry relationships and areas of existing competence.