Financial Inclusion Support Framework (FISF): Learning Series

Live Sessions:

April 22, 2021 | 8:00 am – 10:00 am ET

Consumer Risks in Fintech

➡️ Watch the replay
 

Description: Fintech is increasingly recognized as a key enabler for financial sectors and financial worldwide.  With its benefits, however, fintech products also pose a range of risks to consumers that need to be mitigated in order for fintech to truly benefit consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the widespread transition of consumers to digital financial services (DFS)/fintech while highlighting, as well as benefits, how consumer risks can increase in times of crisis and economic stress. Authorities responsible for FCP are increasingly faced with the challenge of identifying new or changed risks to consumers generated by fintech and developing measures to address them, including through developing or adapting regulation. The task of regulators in developing countries is even more difficult when attempting to tackle this new challenge while having to implement baseline FCP frameworks at the same time.

The WB’s new policy research paper titled ‘Consumer Risks in Fintech: New Manifestations of Consumer Risks and Emerging Regulatory Approaches’ is intended to provide such authorities with a resource synthesizing the kinds of regulatory measures that are being relied on internationally to address new or changed risks for consumers arising from several examples of fintech offerings that can address some of the most basic needs of first-time – and thus inexperienced – financial consumers, namely making payments, borrowing or saving or investing money. 

Part 1: Digital microcredit and e-money (1 hour)

This session explored new manifestations of consumer risks posed by digital microcredit and e-money offerings and emerging regulatory responses and country approaches intended to address those risks.

Part 2: P2P lending and crowdfunding (1 hour)

This session explored new manifestations of consumer risks posed by P2P lending and crowdfunding offerings and emerging regulatory responses and country approaches intended to address those risks.

Opening Remarks: Mahesh Uttamchandani (Practice Manager, World Bank Group)

Speakers: Gian Boeddu (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Jennifer Chien (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Ros Grady (Senior Consultant, World Bank), Ivor Istuk (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank)

April 27, 2021 | 9:00 am – 10:30 am ET

The Next Wave of Suptech Innovation: Suptech Solutions for Prudential and Market Conduct Supervision

➡️ Watch the replay
 

Description: The rapid expansion of fintech and digital financial services around the world has provided many benefits but has also presented supervisors with new challenges, including the need to oversee new financial services entities, protect millions of new users, and address new or enhanced risks including those related to AML/CFT and to consumers. Supervisors must often deal with these challenges with limited capacity and resources. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a new urgency for supervision and oversight to be able to be conducted remotely. It has increased pressure on supervisors to react faster, requiring tailored policy decisions to stabilize the financial sector and protect consumers.

This webinar shared highlights from two recently published technical notes from the World Bank covering these topics.

(1) A Roadmap to Suptech Solutions: As the amount of information necessary to conduct proper identification of risks in financial sector keep growing - especially in a post crisis period - while acceptable reaction times for supervisors become shorter, the implementation of suptech solutions has become a key strategic priority for many supervisors. However, doing it right is not an easy task.

To help financial sector supervisors forge their understanding of suptech solutions and provide practical information on how to implement them, the World Bank has recently launched a guide that outlines specific protocols on the development of suptech strategies, an overview of the different governance models used globally, and a step-by-step guide on the implementation of the strategy with a focus on technology for prudential uses. 

The presentation focused on key aspects that should be considered by the supervisors before and during the implementation of suptech solutions.

(2) The Next Wave of Suptech Innovation: Suptech Solutions for Market Conduct Supervision is intended to assist financial sector authorities seeking to leverage suptech for financial consumer protection. The note provides concrete examples of 18 innovative technology solutions being utilized for market conduct supervisory activities across 14 different countries in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of market conduct supervision.

The presentation explored concrete examples of suptech solutions currently being deployed in four main areas:

1.      Solutions for regulatory reporting by supervised entities

2.      Solutions for collection and processing of complaints data

3.      Solutions for non-traditional market monitoring

4.      Solutions for document and business analysis

Opening Remarks: Mahesh Uttamchandani (Practice Manager, World Bank Group)

Speakers: Jennifer Chien (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Sharmista Appaya (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Matei Dohotaru (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Mackenzie Wallace (Consultant, World Bank)

May 26, 2021 | 8:30 am – 10:00 am ET

Driving Women’s Financial Inclusion through Data 

➡️ Watch the replay
 

Description: Despite advances in financial inclusion across the globe, gender gaps persist with 4 in 10 women in the developing world lacking access to financial services of any kind.  The availability of data and an understanding of how to capitalize on this data to improve financial access underpins policy decisions vis-à-vis financial inclusion, helping regulators and financial service providers design policies and set targets as per market needs. In this milieu, gender-disaggregated data becomes increasingly crucial for measuring women’s financial access and advocating for women-centric policies/strategies.

This session explored advances in measuring women’s financial access and leveraging data to enable women’s financial inclusion. The panelists discussed experiences from Pakistan and Ethiopia under the FISF program and beyond. The four major themes covered under this session were: 

• How innovations in data capture and analytics can enhance women’s access to finance
• The importance of setting strategic, gender-based targets to mainstream women’s financial inclusion as a core policy agenda
• Importance of gender-disaggregated data for women-centric policy making
• Impact of data-backed policies and programs in supporting women’s financial inclusion

Chair and Moderator: Margaret Miller (Lead Financial Sector Economist, World Bank)

Speakers: Helen Luskin Gradstein (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Sarmad Shaikh (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Mengistu Bessir Achew (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Rachel Dawn Coleman (Operations Officer, World Bank)

May 27, 2021 | 8:30 am – 10:00 am ET

Digitizing Government Payments: Lessons from FISF and Beyond

➡️ Watch the replay
 

Description: Governments are often the largest users of a country’s payment systems. Hence improvements in government payments and collections have a substantial impact on government efficiency, public welfare and the broader economy. Additionally, the government can also utilize its role to promote financial inclusion by influencing the choice of the payment medium.

The economic turmoil caused by the COVID 19 pandemic required governments across the world to deliver economic support quickly to millions of families uncovered by existing social safety nets. The need to distribute social-protection payments rapidly while preserving social-distancing measures forced governments and humanitarian agencies to leverage account based and non-account-based digital payments to deliver economic aid. The first part of this session involveed a discussion around the lessons emerging from countries around the use of digital technology to implement these government-to-person (G2P) social assistance programs.

The World Bank’s Financial Inclusion Support Framework (FISF) has supported several countries (Pakistan, Cote D’Ivoire, Mozambique and Indonesia) in digitizing their G2P payments and collections – which have also been discussed in detail in the World Bank’s forthcoming technical note titled ‘Tools for Digitizing Government Payments: Learnings from FISF’. The second half of the session reflected on the experiences and learnings from two such country support programs. Specialists from the World Bank discussed the learnings and experiences from the cost of payments survey in Pakistan, and the mapping and implementation roadmap for digitization of government payments in Cote d’Ivoire.

Chair and Moderator: Harish Natarajan (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank)

Speakers: Alan Gelb (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development), Dorothee Delort (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank), Imtiaz ul-Haq (Economist, IFC)

June 10, 2021 | 8:00 am – 9:30 am ET

Protecting Consumer Data in Opening Banking 

➡️ Watch the replay
 

Description: Open banking increases transparency in financial markets, by making data more widely shared, but it also creates concerns with personal data protection and privacy. Explicit consent addresses the inherent tension which exists in the use of personal data for commercial purposes – such as open banking – by enabling consumers to exert some control over the use of their data. 

While consent is a core part of the legal and regulatory framework for open banking, clear guidance on how to implement consent is frequently lacking, including how to meet legal requirements under relevant laws for data protection and privacy. There are also valid concerns on the limitations to consent, since many consumers simply “tick the box” and don’t fully understand the implications of contracting a financial product or service for access to, and use of, their data. 

In this session we discussed the role of consent in open banking, how it can be strengthened and other possible complementary approaches for protecting consumer data and privacy.

Speakers: Margaret Miller (Lead Financial Sector Economist, World Bank), David Medine (Data Protection and Cybersecurity Consultant), Malavika Raghavan (Senior Fellow, Future of Privacy Forum)  

June 24, 2021 | 8:30 am – 10:30 am ET

Retail Payment System Governance: Keeping Pace with Evolving Markets

➡️ Watch the Replay

Description: Rapid growth and innovation in retail payments have drawn renewed attention to the framework and arrangements for governance of retail payment systems. The mandates of retail payment systems have gained importance as the digital economy has expanded. The changes in market structure, competition, and notions of dynamic efficiency, as well as the ongoing need to enhance inclusion and participation in the economy, underline the important public-sector interests at stake. The governance framework and arrangements for such institutions are hence matters of interest to both the private and the public sector and warrant ongoing management and review. Effective governance arrangements are critical to the pursuit of the key policy objectives of ensuring the safety, reliability, and efficiency of payment systems and their broader role in supporting sector economic activity. This virtual seminar provided a forum for presentation of a new World Bank paper on retail payment system governance and discussion with leading practitioners. Among other topics, governance aspects of fast payment systems were discussed.

Moderator: Holti Banka (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank)
 

Speakers: Peter Møller Jensen (Senior Legal Advisor, World Bank), Ivan Mortimer-Schutts (Senior Operations Officer, IFC), Maha Bahou (CEO, Jordan Payments and Clearing Company), Fred Bar (Industry expert  - European payments industry), Christopher Hamilton (Strategic Advisor and Consultant - National financial infrastructure)

Pre-recorded Sessions:

(Videos will be posted here as and when available and may be watched at the convenience of the audience)

Developing and Operationalizing an NFIS 

These training sessions are based on the Toolkit on Developing and Operationalizing a National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS). View NFIS Toolkit

This 3-part session explores:

• How to prepare for an NFIS including how to identify and engage NFIS stakeholders during the development process, as well as identify an appropriate drafting model, roadmap and conduct preparatory work. 
  Video: Global Trends in NFIS | NFIS Development Process
  
• An NFIS template to facilitate the drafting of a comprehensive and action-oriented NFIS (Topics include crafting an effective vision, baseline assessments and analysis of policy areas, barriers and gaps, and discussion of how to use these elements to develop action plans and M&E frameworks). 
  Video: NFIS Template and Key Components
  
• How to operationalize key NFIS elements (Topics include establishing and convening related NFIS governance arrangements, initiating and implementing the action plan, and operationalizing the NFIS Secretariat).
  Video: Operationalizing an NFIS

Presenters: Helen Luskin Gradstein (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank) and Douglas Randall (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank)

Leveraging Geospatial Technology for Financial Inclusion  

This session explores how geospatial technology can be used not only to map financial access points but as a tool for financial sector authorities to identify gaps in existing coverage and build related interventions. The session aims to provide authorities and other stakeholders practical guidance for leveraging geospatial tools to inform financial inclusion policymaking. The session draws from a World Bank publication on leveraging geospatial technology for financial inclusion and the work that was conducted as a part of the FISF program in Pakistan and Ethiopia. 
 

• Report: Leveraging Geospatial Technology for Financial Inclusion
• Video: Leveraging Geospatial Technology for Financial Inclusion
• Video: Leveraging Geospatial Mapping for Financial Inclusion – Using Less Precise Data

Presenters: Helen Luskin Gradstein (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank) and Imtiaz Ul-Haq (Economist, IFC)

Building a Financial Education Approach: A Starting Point for Financial Sector Authorities

This presentation explores financial education and the role of financial sector authorities, with a particular focus on identifying and mitigating core consumer risks as an overarching goal and guiding principle. The session aims to answer the following questions:

• Why should financial education be a policy consideration for the financial sector authorities?
• When should financial sector authorities intervene?
• How can financial sector authorities build a practical approach to financial education?
• What are the best tools and practices to do so? 

The session explores global good practices and explain evidence to date.
Watch Video

Presenters: Margaret J Miller (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank) and Helen Luskin Gradstein (Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank) 

Case Studies and Insights Featuring Partners and Client Countries

• Sima Kamil, the Deputy Governor of State Bank of Pakistan discusses the Banking on Equality Policy (February 2021)
  Watch Video
  
• Melanie Williams of Bank of Jamaica discusses Jamaica’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (December 2018)
  Watch Video
  
• Juan Carlos Chong of the Peruvian Superintendent of Banking, Insurance and Private pensions discusses Peru’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (December 2018)
  Watch Video