Bladimir didn’t want a bank account. The 22-year-old son of corn and bean farmers in rural El Salvador had moved to the capital in search of greater economic opportunity, but a bank account was not part of that plan. He had grown up with stories of scams and disappointments, and had a deep distrust of bank accounts as a safe way to store his money. Bladimir, however, was not given a choice. As part of his job as a security guard at a mall, he was required by his employer to open an account in order to receive his pay.

Bladimir’s entry into the formal financial system happened at a time when the poor of the world were gaining unprecedented access to financial tools and services. Regulatory changes and technological advances were complemented by an international push from multilateral organisations to make sure that poor people were able to have bank accounts. This all follows a grand target (set by the World Bank) of achieving universal financial access by 2020, allowing 2 billion adults who currently aren’t part of the formal financial system to gain access to a transaction account to store money, send and receive payments as the basic building block to manage their financial lives.

From some angles, the success of these efforts have been extraordinary. But when it’s measured by the actual use of these tools in the lives of people like Bladimir, however, success seems a little more illusory. The World Bank’s Findex survey shows that dormancy rates (basically making zero transactions in a year) are as high as 40% in South Asia, with particularly acute problems amongst the rural poor and women. (Average dormancy rates in high-income countries sit at just 5%.) Maintaining dormant accounts is costly for both the banks (in real dollars) and the customers themselves (through fees). As an additional societal cost, dormancy creates the misperception that, in fact, perhaps this segment shouldn’t be part of the formal financial system.

So why is this happening? There seem to be all sorts of reasons. I spoke to one relocated customer in Mexico who used to stuff his jacket with cash and travel back to his original home town once a month to deposit it, despite walking past several branches of the same bank in Mexico City every day. He simply didn’t realise that the branch in his town was part of the same umbrella institution. People who haven’t chosen a bank account for themselves or who just are not used to them may not understand (through no fault of their own) the details of their account and how to use it. They will stop using it when it fails to meet their needs.

In some cases banks have also hired agents and paid them a commission to sign people up – whether they really want an account of not. We spoke with a bank agent who, despite working in the informal financial sector for 25 years, had no idea how to use the product he was selling. He was solely concerned on getting new users through the door and receiving the new phone he’d been offered as an incentive. If the agents selling the accounts don’t know how to use them, then what hope is there for the customer?

Some people set out a bank account in order to get a loan. Some are signed up automatically by government or other programs. In some cases people have dumped their bank account and are using mobile money.

Overcoming this problem means we need to find new kinds of value in the accounts to address the unique challenges faced by low-income consumers. For Bladimir, the key was an account feature that allowed him to automatically reserve part of his income for a savings goal, in his case university studies. This is what finally encouraged him to use the account for more than simply a mandatory payment mechanism and to develop a positive relationship with his financial institution that brought him closer to meeting his goals.

Bank accounts that were designed as convenience tools for the middle classes just don’t really work for people on lower incomes. The financial needs of this sector are obviously diverse. But the fact is that they tend to revolve around solving immediate problems rather than accumulating money. These people are rarely trying to optimise interest returns or build credit history. They are often just trying to store money in a safe place where it can be instantly and securely accessed in the case of urgent need.

So the key thing is to provide tools that trade quick and easy access for security and longer term planning, preventing unnecessary spending, and emphasising the security and certainty that banking services can provide. Our research suggests, psychologically, people treat bank accounts fundamentally different to mobile-money products whose ease of use can lead to quick spending, and other research bears this out. Only when referring to bank accounts do we hear users talking about saving for a wedding or religious holiday.

The old-fashioned bank account may not be as glamorous as the shiny new mobile money product, but its primary use case could help ensure that the inclusion in in financial inclusion does more than provide convenience and connection, that it provides security and opportunity as well. Just ask Bladimir.

That is not to say banks should eschew technology; indeed they need to embrace it because the face-to-face traditional service model is costly. But they should ensure the right technology is used in the right way - automating call centers or even outsourcing customer engagement to players who are specifically set up to manage it at scale, rather than designing products for the wrong end-user.

Chris Walker is principal data scientist and economist at Juntos Global.