The financial services sector in Scotland needs to "step up" to the challenge of getting more people engage with their finances.
Sandy Begbie, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, said there were at least 100,000 people in Scotland who do not even have access to a bank account.
He said: "The industry does need to step up to the challenge. I mean with Scotland, when you look at some of the FCA figures, we have a disproportionately larger problem than other parts of the UK."
He said there were initiatives on the horizon, in tandem with the FCA, to address the problem of the unbanked population.
Begbie added: "Unless you've got that entry point into the financial system of a bank account, then you don't have access to anything else. Then you can take in things like insurance, protection, savings and everything else, but you need that entry point, which is the bank account."
Alastair Ross, from the Association of British Insurers, said the language in the industry can be technical which can make it exclusive.
He said with changes coming on the advice guidance boundary there could soon be regulation in place for more people to access advice.
Ross added: "We don't help ourselves. The language is quite technical which can be a bit exclusive.
"If you're in that position, where you're approaching that point in life and you need to start thinking about your pension pot but you don't even know what annuity is, there are some really fundamental challenges out there. So we need to get better at explaining and discussing. And there's no one single silver bullet for that."
Ross pointed to the latest campaign from ABI and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association which saw reality TV star Gemma Collins appear in adverts urging people to engage with their pensions.
He said this was an example of the industry "getting creative" in its approach to increase pension engagement.
The comments were made as part of a panel on the state of the nation in Scotland at the Lang Cat's Home Games event taking place in Edinburgh today (October 3).
tara.o'connor@ft.com
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