Target 1.4: Equal rights to economic resources and financial services
By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
The financial-services component depends directly on the conduct of banks, mobile-money operators and fintechs. The World Bank's Global Findex 2025 reports that 79 percent of adults now hold an account, with mobile phones driving the gains in developing economies. In the United States the FDIC finds 4.2 percent of households unbanked in 2023. The most cited reason is inability to meet minimum balance requirements, a product-design choice that bank owners can change. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility has pressed banks to offer fairer credit: after its members filed shareholder resolutions for three consecutive years, Wells Fargo dropped its payday-style Direct Deposit Advance product in 2014. Land, inheritance and natural-resource rights remain the domain of governments. Owners supply a necessary input on the financial-access side while others must act on the rest.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- The Global Findex Database 2025, World Bank, 2025-07
- Underbanked US population grows to 14.2%, FDIC finds, Banking Dive, 2024-11-13
- FDIC Survey Finds 96 Percent of U.S. Households Were Banked in 2023, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2024-11-12
- Investors Commend Wells Fargo for Dropping Direct Deposit Advance Product, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2014-01-17
1 campaign on record
Urged Wells Fargo to discontinue its Direct Deposit Advance product, a payday-style advance repaid automatically from the customer's next deposit, which the filers argued trapped customers in a cycle of debt through automatic repayment and high fees. Resolutions were filed for three consecutive years and the investors had engaged the bank since 2009.
With Christian Brothers Investment Services, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility members
Result: Withdrawn or overtaken by the company's own decision: Wells Fargo announced on January 17, 2014 that it would discontinue the product
Wells Fargo discontinued the Direct Deposit Advance program effective February 1, 2014
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.