Apart from being policy tools to mitigate the impact of adverse shocks and social protection instruments, social assistance programs (SAPs) are also expected to promote financial inclusion in Indonesia, specifically to low-income and vulnerable groups traditionally excluded from formal financial services. Hence, this paper aims to empirically evaluate the impact of SAPs during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 on people’s access to and usage of formal financial products and services. To estimate the impact, we employ a quasi-experimental method, propensity score matching (PSM), and data from the last National Survey of Financial Inclusion. It is evident that, on average, the large-scale social assistance programs in 2021 to cushion the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic-led economic distress have a limited impact on enhancing financial inclusion in Indonesia. SAPs have improved the probability of people having a transactional account in formal financial institutions. However, SAPs do not significantly affect the usage of formal financial products and services and their propensity to access informal financial services.