Anne Marie van Swinderen is the founder and Managing Director of L-IFT BV, a company dedicated to bringing data empowerment to low-income people, primarily through its technology FINBIT. L-IFT incorporated in 2015 and started as a research company specialized in financial diaries studies. Anne Marie has worked on a number of digital solutions for addressing the financial challenges of different disadvantaged groups.
Anne Marie has been active in financial inclusion for over three decades working and living in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Initially she worked on the supply side of microfinance, for instance as a Staff Economist at BRAC and supporting Vietnam’s Women’s Union setting up a microfinance institution. Since reading Portfolios of the Poor she decided to dedicate her work to the understanding of disadvantaged, underserved groups and promoting wide-spread use of the financial diaries approach. She has conducted diaries studies in 20 countries across three continents, demonstrating that things are seldom as you thought they were. L-IFT and Anne Marie’s motto is “Listening to the unheard”.