Innovations in technology, mainly in financial technology (Fintec), artificial intelligence (AI), and their associated risks to stakeholders highlight the urgent need for extensive financial literacy and Fintec strategies. The World Bank reports that nearly 70% of countries have adopted financial literacy or comprehensive financial skills policies. Though it’s a welcoming statistic towards financial inclusivity, there is still a need to surpass conventional financial education by integrating digital financial literacy and specialized Fintec tactics. This analysis outlines the main drivers behind the global adoption of national Fintec programs. A supervised machine learning approach, specifically the Multi-Layer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network (MLP-ANN), is used with secondary data from the World Bank Group’s Global State of Financial Inclusion and Consumer Protection survey. Results show a persistent gap between the roles of commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions in advancing financial inclusion. Digital credit, crypto-assets, crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer lending have become the key drivers of national financial inclusion initiatives among Fintec products. The findings suggest policymakers need to address inherent consumer vulnerabilities and promote cross-sector collaboration to develop effective monitoring and evaluation frameworks. The paper also suggests opportunities for future research by incorporating additional macroeconomic variables to better understand their effects on Fintec strategies and tools.