This week, I am in Cape Town to attend the fourth Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Global Policy Forum (GPF), together with MMU Director Seema Desai, and over 360 policymakers, regulators, and partners from 80+ developing and emerging countries.
The core session of the first day of the GPF was dedicated to the country updates on the progresses made to advance financial access for poor households and small enterprises, particularly by those AFI members (93 financial sector authorities from global south) that joined the Maya Declaration and made specific financial inclusion commitments at last year’s GPF. Policymakers from Fiji, Equatorial Guinea, the Philippines, Malawi, Mexico, and Rwanda presented their achievements and challenges in building a support framework for financial inclusion. During the second part of the panel, the regulators left the stage and some representatives from the private sector, as well as CGAP and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, joined AFI Executive Director Alfred Hannig to discuss possible ways to support the Maya Declaration.
Seema was one of panellists who was invited to discuss the potential impact of the Maya Declaration on the global financial inclusion landscape, the development of new forms of collaboration with regulators at global and country level, and the possible role that industry stakeholders can play in achieving these financial inclusion goals. MMU fully supports the Maya Declaration, and the push towards greater financial inclusion by so many countries across the globe. We see value in these commitments where they lead to policies and regulatory frameworks that support growth but do not stifle innovation. Probably one of the best outcomes of the Maya commitments at national level is that policymakers will improve coordination and engage in consultation with the private sector. When designing new policies, the implementation aspects need to be carefully assessed, particularly when the industry that is going to be regulated is young (out of around 130 deployments that active today over 70% of deployments launched in 2010 or thereafter) and the private sector needs to make significant upfront investments into mobile money services if they are to be successful.
Since 2009, MMU has helped to foster dialogue between regulators and mobile network operators through the GSMA MMU Leadership Forum (GSMA’s annual event on mobile money policy and regulation), in country, in collaboration with AFI and more recently through collaboration with the AFI Mobile Financial Services Working Group. MMU is already working with AFI members, such as the BCEAO, to help them to design and implement mobile money regulation.
MMU can help to facilitate discussion and consultation with the private sector, to shape policies regulation that most effectively supports the growth of mobile money industries that contribute to financial inclusion. Regarding the implementation of national objectives that each country sets up, MMU can also help to monitor progress towards financial inclusion and the accomplishment of the Maya commitments. The Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey provides data around the performance of the mobile money industry, such as the rate of customer adoption, which is a key indicator of success of mobile money policies.
PS: Nestor Espenilla, Deputy Governor of the Bangkok Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is the new chair of the AFI steering committee. This is very good news. Mr Espenilla has contributed significantly to the growth on mobile money in the Philippines, and has collaborated with MMU in different circumstances helping the GSMA to advocate for enabling policies sharing the experience of the BSP. Under his leadership we hope that the AFI network will be even more active in the promotion of better regulations for mobile money.