 Hi good afternoon everyone. I think we're good. Oh, thank you. Oh, all right some energy in the room. I like it Let's go ahead and get started Okay, welcome to the new America Foundation I think most of you probably know me. I'm Jamie Zimmerman and I run the global assets program here Within the asset building program at the new America Foundation. So I just want to introduce you to today's event and our speakers So today the event protecting the poor through financial innovation It really it has a long history and a special significance to me And so I'm really excited about it and I'm happy to welcome you all today All the way back in I think like 2007 I started talking about this idea of providing asset building opportunities through cash transfers to the poor I saw this kind of growing global enthusiasm For cash-based social protection particularly at the time conditional cash transfers But cash transfers even unconditional just broadly speaking And thought you know wow this could you know really be a natural gateway to financial inclusion and asset building here are Hundreds of millions of the world's poorest receiving regular payments of cash And yet at that time the financial inclusion field, which I'm sure most of you are part of Around the world. We're still scratching our heads about how to reach the bottom billion With effective financial services So I was looking at this and I saw the possibilities for innovation and delivery for program and policy design as really virtually limitless And as I began digging deeper into these ideas, I realized that I was not the only one in 2008 I met This very charming gentleman named Eve Murray who runs projecto capital and fundación capital In Latin America and the Caribbean who was running pilots at the time in Peru to spur financial education and asset building among rural women Who were recipients of the National Social Welfare program there called juntos in 2009? He and I teamed up and we wrote a report called savings linked conditional cash transfers Which posited this concept of deliberately linking savings and asset building opportunities to cash transfers and Considering some of the behavioral side effects and spillover effects that could occur at the exact same time The consultative group to assist the poor seagap over at the World Bank Release their seminal paper protecting the poor through g2p payments, which exposed this kind of amazing opportunity in front of us They found in that report this kind of widely cited statistic that 20 only 25 percent of all cash transfers to the poor not including kind of these kind of broad inclusive Pension programs were being delivered in a financially includes any sort of financially inclusive way So, you know, we were on the front end of what I see is kind of quickly emerging field of work of advocacy And one that we here internally at New America and many others have tried to facilitate and nurture Through convening efforts like the first ever global colloquium on savings and cash transfers that was held in 2010 up at the Ford Foundation in New York and the subsequent papers that came out of out of that colloquium and a smaller strategic roundtable that Came afterwards and I think that both of those papers are outside You know and as well as some topical examinations that we did like a paper that we wrote with the UNDP called a third way for official development assistance Actually, one of my co-authors two of my co-authors are in the room right now One from the UNDP and one from our team here at NAF That paper advocates for leveraging trends Toward electronic delivery of cash transfers not just for the government to person payments But also for aid delivery and other types of cash transfers that we're seeing moving between Institutions to to poor people as well. So the base of of our enthusiasm my enthusiasm. I think everyone else is enthusiasm, too around this idea is Based on what I call what I always refer to as kind of a win-win-win like a triple win win to the power to the third You know among the governments and paying institutions. That's one through the efficiency gains As you know and reduce corruption and leakage that you see when you make electronic transfers to better monitoring Evaluation all of these things that could happen when you switch to electronic delivery to Among intermediaries such as the private sector financial institutions And the cash transfer Processing NGOs Non-profit sector who are looking to either capture or serve kind of this massive untapped population with their products and services As well as and of course most importantly number three the poor themselves Who would gain access to a very important financial service? The ability to Manage their limited resources and maybe even save and build assets for their future So at the same time You know we were also we've also been motivated to understand whether this potential that we have seen is in fact real Or just kind of the theoretical Hocus-pocus of something tankers here in washington dc and a few others Part of the challenge to knowing the real potential for savings And social protection linkages stems from has stemmed from kind of this disparate and even non-existent data And or information on the factors that would allow us to seize upon the potential So even basic questions like how many people are receiving cash transfers globally? Or what is the aggregate global potential for linking savings opportunities to cash transfers? Both of those questions I have received. I've been asked multiple times Have been extremely hard to answer For a number of reasons, you know the either the data aren't there. They're you know, they're not found in one place um, and you know The even more gritty questions like which programs or policies which countries are ready for movement to electronic that haven't done it yet Or you know, what needs to happen to get them to get the rest ready and how Or which programs have been successful in spurring financial inclusion asset building? And what if anything from the work that they're doing is replicable across other programs? Those are even harder questions still so um In 20 last year the end of last year in 2011 the global savings and social protection initiative was founded With the support of the ford foundation city foundation C gap and Nike foundation to bring together the information that would provide this growing field with some clarity And to take a pragmatic solutions oriented approach to enhancing both the efficiency and effectiveness Of cash transfers through financial inclusion and vice versa So bringing all the data together like Basically all the data that you can imagine that we could find Um on the size the structure the delivery of as many social protection programs We could in africa asia latin america and the caribbean and then doing You know analysis our own analysis of those um and the potential for financial inclusion for asset building for leveraging Uh financial infrastructure was a really has been a really long grueling process. Um, hence we're here in June of 2012 uh and just showing you what we've got. So, you know up to up to now and even even still You know, there have been no common definitions There's a lot of ambiguity in these programs and they're constantly constantly evolving their focus their structure Their objectives So, you know for just to all that is a preface to say this is all just to start But I think the work that we've done is already revealing some really surprising findings and I just want to mention one And just three short years from 2009 to 2012 Uh electronic delivery of cash transfers has nearly tripled from the 25 estimate that was in that Seagap report that I mentioned just a few moments ago to nearly 70 percent based on the data that we have been collecting And that's a huge change in a very short period of time Uh, my hope is that our collective work and now as our collective work and analysis evolves That the website and the underlying data Provide a basis for thoughtful evaluation of the potential for financial inclusion through g2p That provides an honest reflection on the opportunities and challenges in front of us And it provides a catalyst for new ideas and innovation So my colleague Vishnu Sridharan, uh who has labored away at this website and the subsequent analysis for several months Um is going to walk you through some of the features of uh the website that we're launching today And some of its initial findings and then the next thing we're going to do is we're going to bring up our panel of experts and hear from them A very wide-ranging panel, um experts across all sectors that you can imagine Uh bringing their different perspectives interests and motivations and get their insights into this field, uh and where it's all headed Uh, but before Vishnu comes up, I just want to do a couple of obligatory housekeeping Uh make a couple housekeeping points that I always have to make first as always The event today is being webcast live, um for remote audiences And so to ensure that all of our remote colleagues are able to enjoy this event Uh, I'm just asking that everyone when we do get to q&a and when the speakers are speaking speak directly into the microphone Please introduce yourself Um so that they can hear you and also feel like they're part of this event and part of the part of the discussion Um second for those who are tweet inclined or twitter inclined or something along those lines You can follow the conversation on this event. Um by following the hashtag gsp And you can also submit questions to the panelists over twitter via that hashtag if you like And those will be shared with us during q&a. So I think that that's it for me. So Vishnu come on up and show us what you got Thank you Thank you and welcome. Uh, it's good to see so many friends both new and old Um, I think Jamie did a great job of really outlining how much This project has evolved over the past five years and I think before getting into The nitty-gritty of the website, I'd like to talk a little bit about How dynamic the field is because I think that enables us to truly appreciate why a website like ours is Important I think there are three reasons in my mind why The field of cash transfers and social protection through cash payments is so dynamic as it stands now I'd say first these programs are young um progressa, which is the first conditional cash transfer program, which is now opportunity that is started in 1997 and from our website You'll see the vast majority of these programs are less than 10 years old So one reason the scene is changing so quickly is that these programs are still, you know If not in their infancy then in their early teens and you know, as we all know the teenage years are tumultuous So there's more experimentation going on to better establish how These programs can be structured to maximize their impact on the beneficiaries I'd say two more quick reasons why this scene is evolving and changing and dynamic is that These programs from the very beginning have been very thoroughly evaluated That the in lat the latin american countries that pioneered this generation of the initial generation of cash transfers Built in best practice monitoring and evaluation and the results of those M&E Efforts sort of led to these programs being improved And the last point I'd make on why these programs changed so quickly or the diversity of stakeholders involved Which I think is well illustrated by our panel today That we have, you know, un cd un capital development fund working on the better than cash initiative Which we'll hear more about the un dp working on cash transfers in Fragile environments, we have city and seagap working on electronic Government to person payments and researching these different financially inclusive models and I think it's because there are so many different actors from so many different sectors involved these These programs change quickly and it's important to have an idea of You know what is going on across the board and I think that's what leads us to the importance of of this website because When we bring together The data from all these programs and all these efforts and and get sort of state of the field in one place Sort of the synergies that can take place are You know amazing and I think that's where you know having this communication across the field can really be important But as jimmy mentioned, we're not we're not looking at all trends in cash transfer programs what we're specific we're focusing specifically on the potential for financial inclusion and savings linkages And as is discussed in more detail in the trends paper that's available outside And I think we'll be discussed more in the panel We see two broad trends towards financial inclusion one Within the program structure and one within payment infrastructure On the program structure side. We see a greater emphasis on Graduating from poverty on helping beneficiaries not only maintain a level of subsistence and consumption But also improve their own lot and I think that's something that c gap has been working on with the four foundation these graduation models and also our colleagues and the In the asset building program who can attest that oftentimes the difference between the poorest families And the more prosperous is not just income but assets and that Human financial and physical capital make it possible for families to weather tough times and seize opportunities to lead to economic security And on the payment infrastructure side We've seen this amazing shift that jimmy mentioned the the tripling of electronic payments that are just leading countries and multilaterals around the world to make the shift from cash payments to Electronic and I think we'll hear more about that in the better in cash initiative But just to take one example that I think is very telling that From 2009 to 2011 in colombia They cut the number of individuals receiving cash payments through their social protection program From 76 percent to nine and that just in the span of two years is amazing But i'm sure more on these trends will come out through the panel and if you'd like to read the paper But to shift to the website. This is I think an overview of how I think one can conceive of how the website Works on a higher level that We have you know program and country data and this is also how we'll walk through the site We have program and country data that sort of leads to our analysis of How these programs could be improved and and how where these programs are succeeding And that leads to us discussing, you know, where innovations are possible and what innovations are possible And then as these innovations are implemented that leads to more data on How these programs develop and then this sort of Virtuous cycle or virtuous gearing I guess would would take place. So now we can Toggle over to the website All right, so this is the universe of programs that We are looking at on this map, but just as a sort of preliminary methodological note As you can tell, you know for our for our first shot at this data, we focused on Latin America, Africa and sort of Southeast Asia and East Asia And sort of we look forward to expanding beyond that. In addition within these regions We we limited our analysis to you know, we excluded sorry We included all anti-poverty programs reaching more than 5 000 individuals So there was a minimum level of individuals for a cut-off And pension programs programs that were closed or other universal programs were generally excluded So there is there are some limitations to the programs that were included that are important To keep in mind and within that we have sort of 90 programs in 54 countries Now I think so to start on the data side just so we can get some idea of how this works Let's say The So if we want to look at the program data We can get we'll get more into the country data later, but on each program I just chose this one you have you can access Basically a snapshot of data on the number of individuals the budget the year it started the method of payment Its goals its target populations really you can access this pretty easily for Every country in the database and then if you would like to do further reading or get an idea of what else has been written on the programs You can go into the resource library And you know access a list of the papers that we have in our database that discuss that program And so this shifting to the country data side So when it comes to country data things get a little more interesting because there are of course A lot of variables that we did look at within each country to think about Again because we're interested in the potential of Implementing these savings linked models So in particular we were interested in Analyzing each country's payment infrastructure Sort of the presence of banks atm's point of service terminals Our point of sale terminals the infrastructure utilization sort of the cash flows that we're going through the infrastructure The political environment for or the political will for financial inclusion And sort of the governance in place to implement these savings linked models So we really we have a heat map on each of these four large Data fields and each one of course is composed of Individual variables so it will walk you through the payment infrastructure example so you can see Right so chili has a payment infrastructure of five meaning it's one of the most robust But what does that mean so you if you scroll over the country you see The country's score on all these individual visual variables. I don't if you can't read it You have commercial banks per 100,000 adults atm's per 100,000 adults point of sale Point of sale per 100,000 adults Mobile penetration and all of these individual variables Taken together calculate the payment infrastructure score and the score of one to five illustrates the which Keen tile which fifth The country is in compared to the other countries and analyze meaning that Chili has a payment infrastructure score of five meaning it's in the top fifth of the country's examined For the number of commercial banks per 100,000 adults And I know that that that may sound complicated and we can talk about it more But if you want to break it down by individual variable, let's say if you're interested in The commercial banks per 100,000 adults you can click on that to just see a map Of that particular variable and which countries have You know more a higher number of commercial banks a higher number of ATMs a higher mobile penetration I mean all of these maps are just there for you to play with and see to get that better understanding of When we say that a country has a strong payment infrastructure What exactly do we mean by that in what ways are it strong in what ways is it weak? And sort of get that more fine grained analysis then you can get Sort of at the highest level which is here And so when we say that a country has You know a strong political when we say india has a strong political will for financial inclusion You know you can click through to see exactly all the individual variables that went into That determination So that's the program and country data side Sort of taking it up a level to the analysis that we've started to to conduct although the first stage was a lot Focused on data So one of the the first analyses we did was which was Central was looking at the potential of these countries to implement savings linked models And what went into this analysis was these four composite variables Which we felt is very important to the potential and also the Amount of payments sort of the amount of cash that was in the program and The number of beneficiaries so sort of the scale of the program So on this map you'll see that brazil mexico india peru all these countries we say have This potential to be implementing these models and I think as as we know and as a lot of research shows that These countries to different extents Are implementing these models and I think moving forward one of of the many maps we we have planned in terms of this analysis are Which countries have already shifted to these financially inclusive models? Which countries are using mobiles for delivery or using biometrics are Implementing these graduation models and these are the sort of Analyses that we think that are going to emerge From this program and country data I think just to where we see that analysis going Is to feed into sort of enabling Innovation and thinking about where innovation is possible And this is sort of the the innovation level the innovation gear if you will and I think Probably the most direct connection comes through Just in this this example this article on Well, that's it does show up that in the Philippines you look at the payment infrastructure It it's or our map of the payment infrastructure and it shows that there's potential for innovation in in cash transfer deliveries and then you see that The government is partnering with globe telecommunications and banco for To provide mobile bank accounts to recipients of the cash transfers But this is just one example because As I think whore hey can talk about another Um usa and city are collaborating on implementing Mobile and expanding the mobile infrastructure in not only the Philippines, but Colombia and Haiti and Kenya And so this is just there there are a variety of places that we can show that these innovations are possible And I think the two other sort of blocks that that Will highlight where innovation Sort of our innovation section is of course where innovation is already happening Um, for instance in Haiti's new cash transfer program using mobiles as a delivery method and just this report that A colleague jamie Holmes came across today on on c-gap and for foundations collaboration to In Ethiopia on on the graduation model there And sort of last but not least but we have a section on on new ideas on where New policies and technologies can be implemented to take these programs forward And that will come both from our own research We have we have a paper coming out soon on asset transfers to girls Um to have some ideas of how to encourage savings and reminders for savings in in different contexts and You know different payment Possibilities in this this particular example was in Peru but Hopefully we didn't get or I didn't get lost in the details, but I think that in in a general sense is is how the site works together and and I think the What we see is a value of the website is we know these programs have An amazing impact and we know they're sort of rapidly evolving in the field But until now there hasn't been This sort of one-stop shop that has the up-to-date data on these programs and the countries the analysis of that data And sort of the suggestions for the next generation of innovations to drive these programs forward And I see this is again leading to this virtuous cycle or Virtuous gearing where These processes feed off each other. We get innovations from the field We stay up to date on the on the on cutting edge analysis and we continue to maintain our data And this website can serve as sort of a repository or a resource for you know, all of our panelists and everyone else In this field and I really look forward to hearing what They say and in moving forward and how it can be useful to them Moving forward just two things just to say a little bit about the direction of the website Um one of the one of the pressing questions for future research and I think it's the number that Jamie pointed out in her introduction this Number of individuals receiving payments electronically and I know this this says savings enabling but what we mean is that The number of recipients who are able to Store these payments for some period of time And I think this is one of the numbers that we found very surprising because if only three years ago The financial inclusive financially inclusive payments were significantly lower We want to just look closer at exactly what has changed in what ways has this electronic payment led to financial inclusion and in what ways hasn't it and You know how to either guide that shift to electronic payments better or to make it more meaningful for beneficiaries And just lastly we we just released our trends paper But the next paper will be releasing with our partners at C gap Will be about specific contexts and countries In which the time is ripe for for specific movement toward financially inclusive Financially inclusive policies and products and you'll see that emerging probably Most clearly from from this section of our website So on that note, I'll I'll I'll end and if there are any questions in particular about the website I can how might take we can take will we take them after We'll take them after because the panelists will have the first opportunity to comment and Give us their feedback on on what we've just put out Thank you all right panelists you can come on up And while the panelists are coming up and getting situated. I will take the opportunity to first thank vision for His great presentation walking us through really an extensive amount of data collection and Graphical summarization and bringing this all together behind all those pretty maps and charts and Aggregate numbers. There's you know, really thousands and thousands of variables and data points that a whole team of people went into A whole team of people work together to throw together So I shouldn't say throw it together to pull together and analyze over a number of months So thank you for that Vishnu and now We're missing one But I'm sure he's on his way back To turn it over to our panel of experts as I was mentioning in my introductory remarks and Vishnu had commented as well we have a I think a great panel with experts from basically every Type of sector that you can imagine all of them working in some respect on this Topic in question of the intersection between financial inclusion and social protection or cash transfers So I just really want to quickly introduce the panel to everyone and then Take the moderators prerogative to ask the first question So in my immediate right is sarah rottman sarah is a financial sector specialist on cgaps technology and business model innovation team Where she leads the work on branchless banking In west african economic and monetary union and I thought it was just like overall He just did it all. That's my impression of you She manages the team's work on g2 on government to person payments Looking for ways to leverage this large flow of money to bring the poor and unbanked into the formal financial system And prior to joining cgaps. She has been all over the world working in it with micro finance in rwanda on non-profit with the non-profit on education in haydee with the peace corps in benin And uh, yeah, and then yeah, so you've been basically everywhere doing everything. That's really cool to my next next in line to the right is hordeiru yonava who is a founding member of city's global micro finance group based in london Which was created in 2005 he On the forefront of the whole micro finance movement through this kind of the larger private sector And participated in the development of city's commercial strategy to engage in the micro finance sector Across all of their businesses and geographies in his position He's been responsible for developing the commercial relationships globally with micro finance clients and investors to expand access to financial services to the unbanked and underserved And now they have micro finance and yeah just since 2005 in 30 countries around the world. It's really impressive He's done a large number of other Equally if not more impressive things With both city and at harvard and all over the world. I won't go into all of that, but he has a really Very extensive and intriguing bio that I encourage everyone to try to track down. It's not easy Next is saba sobani Is the manager of the growing inclusive markets initiative at the undp That's the un development program for those which are most are familiar, but just in case Saba is the lead author of the first growing inclusive markets report creating value for all Strategies for doing business with the poor and previously he managed two key private sector initiatives in the executive office of the administrator of the undp Uh including the commission of the on the private sector and development Um headed by paul martin Ernesto sedio the and then also work on the african financial markets initiative in this capacity He was the co-author of unleashing entrepreneurship Report the seminal report of the private sector commission produced at the request of of the un secretary general kofi anon But I would like to think that what he's most known for is co-authoring with me The report third way for oda that was published in 2011 That's wishful thinking, but that's okay And then finally at the at the end of the panel is dorkas robinson who is the director for gender and food security In care usa's food and livelihoods justice team There she Chairs the care international food security strategy steering committee and is responsible for strengthening cares global impact on hunger and food security She coordinates cares partnership with the akinson center at cornell. Uh, it's on the the committee the steering committee for the care wwf alliance and presents care usa in the care international poverty Environment and climate change network. Um, that is a that is a mouthful. It's great. Uh, which has been spearheaded by care denmark You know, obviously care is a is one of the largest ngos And uh, and are doing some really innovative work, um on in this space and others all around So I you know, she's I'm really excited to have her here today and hear more about from the ngo perspective how Yeah, how this all matters to them So lastly, I think everybody probably saw on the agenda that we did have a fifth panelist Brad green who leads some of the mobile money efforts over at visa He was called out of dc at the last minute and unfortunately could not attend today But I just wanted to point out that that's uh, I acknowledge that he is not on the panel And and hopefully there will be opportunities to hear on here visa's Perspective on this issue. Um at some other point So I'm going to go ahead and get started from there lots of information That came out in that presentation Tons more if you're actually able to you know, play with the website in any sort of way So we're trying to really put all of this into context And so it's the first question to the panel Um that I would pose you know as experts from all varieties of sectors from research to relief Multilateral aid to the private sector I'd love for each of you to tell us about the work that you and or your organization Are doing at the intersection of cash transfers and payments And financial inclusion and asset building and uh specifically from where you sit Now what questions you would hope a site like this would answer for you Um, you know, uh, you know kind of getting an initial reaction and commentary from you on on the website and the analysis that was presented Um, and just you know, I guess sarah. You can start us off But you know just a final comment before we get rolling is you know one of the as you saw and as uh You know this new described they're one of those blocks where we're focused on innovation Is really looking at where innovation is already happening Um, and I think that this is a panel of people who are able to You know exemplify like, you know Clearly for all of us. Um some really amazing examples Um of that innovation and I hope that you know that comes out in our in our discussion today So we'll start there and we'll just go down the panel and then we'll See where it goes Thank you sarah. Go ahead. Great. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Jamie um, so I think I'll Start things off from seap's perspective. Um, I have five Points that I'd like to communicate with all of you based on some of seap's work and some of our observations on how this Field has developed over the last few years and now what this website and this initiative With new america foundation will enable so seap really comes out this this area of Gdp and financial inclusion From the branchless banking side of things So how can we innovate on the payment side of of these programs to try and link the flows of money that are targeting The poor and the unbanked and bring them into the financial system and offering them financial tools to manage their money And we've done that in in two main ways through research and jamey mentioned a few of our Research papers that we've done and a recent study that came out a few months ago looking at four countries in depth and how Their payment schemes within their social cash transfer programs have Developed but also on the on the implementation side of things are working Um on a pilot in bangladesh with the work fair program there with the government In trying to pilot a new payment system using both cards and mobile phones We're working with kaizha in brazil on ways that they can work with both of familiar beneficiaries and Not only give them access to disamplified accounts, but also increase usage And and a few other programs around the world as well So both on the research side and more on the implementation side That's kind of where we've been focusing our work and where I think i'm pulling some of my thoughts about this space So my first three points are kind of organized around the way that we've organized our thinking Um along the lines of the three main stakeholders that we see in this space Which is the government the ministry that is is launching these social protection programs The payment provider and then of course the the clients the beneficiaries And then I have four uh two other just smaller points to finish off So with the governments, you know, I think the the website and the trends paper Is very useful in in just pointing out some of these huge shifts that governments have made that vishnu spoke to You know seeing that 70 of the cash transfer recipients Receive their payments electronically and in some capacity are able to store some of their payments for future use The actual nuance of that probably differs very much among that 70 percent But you know based on what we saw two or three years ago This is a very dynamic and growing space um But from coming at this from the financial inclusion perspective I do recognize that You know, I'm not a social protection or social cash transfer expert and you know see gaps housed at the world bank where there's a whole Unit that just focuses on social protection and pensions and Conditional and conditional. I mean people build their careers around this and I hope we have some of those experts here today with us And so I think there's a bit of Of humility that those of us in the financial inclusion space need to take in trying to make this linkage because We aren't really the experts in social protection and You know the link to financial inclusion can can often get forgotten in the quest for payment efficiency Which is really the main objective of the social protection Colleagues and I think that probably should be their their main objective So, you know, we are coming at it from different perspectives, but I think actually that's okay I think that there's this idea of sequencing which is probably healthy for how we see Things develop, you know, we we start with cash and obviously social protection experts want to transition to electronic for efficiency purposes And then we can we can often sequence from that to linking with more financial services. So I think that sequencing is okay In terms of the payment provider You know, I think that the infrastructure section of the trends paper and also the website that we just saw Is really helpful in in basically identifying differences between countries which use GDP payments to build up their financial sector or branches banking infrastructure Versus those countries that Use GDP payments and are facilitated by the existing infrastructure in place and this I think really Plays a big role in in what the costs look like so From the financial Financial provider perspective if they already have an agent network in place to leverage and how they make payments That's completely different than a financial provider or a payment provider in a country where they have to build that infrastructure Some of these costs, you know, we saw quite Starkly in comparing the columbian example to the brazil example, for instance Where the cost to go electronic into accounts in brazil went down because they had hundreds of thousands of agents to leverage Versus in columbia it actually went up because the agent network had to be built in order to make some of these payments So I think from the payment provider perspective How these payments are viewed in terms of either building up or Leveraging the existing infrastructure is a big big difference The other observation from the provider side of things is that I think mobile payments here is a lot harder than we think And part of it is because the beneficiaries that we're targeting are the poorest of the poor And so even if mobile penetration in a country is extremely deep It's still probably not reaching that deep. So not only do the beneficiaries often not have mobile phones, but um, you know, how Uh, how the payments would be made Um, if if a mobile phone isn't required is it's tricky So I think in in some of the the um, the data that's on the website You can get a little bit more nuance in terms of where some innovations are happening on the mobile side of things But what's important in terms of whether we use mobile or what infrastructure we use or if it's card based or whatever I think from seagal's perspective, we really see that it's important not to Silo these beneficiaries off into a separate financial Payment system that can't integrate into the regular payment system of a country And that's often I think the risk sometimes in trying to make efficient payments Um, and and that kind of gets to some of the sequencing I was talking about earlier The third point is around clients. Um And and I think we all can agree that the poor are saving They just might not be doing it in the accounts that are being opened linked to these programs, but They are saving. Um, I think the discussion often sometimes with social protection experts comes Kind of goes back to semantics What do we mean by savings savings doesn't necessarily mean asset building over a long-term horizon I could just as easily use the word storage That is a type of saving but it really sends different messages to different people So we could talk about storage. We could talk about consumption smoothing I think uh, you know, what what I get excited about in terms of this idea of of um, you know What are we trying to offer clients is that we just want to give them tools to manage their limited resources better or well And we all know that if a bolsa familiar recipient receives a hundred dollars twice a month They don't consume a hundred dollars on the day that they receive it They have to make it last over two months. So whether you call that savings, whether you call that storage or consumption smoothing I think the the overall objective is really to give them the tools to manage their resources well Um, and I think the other comment around clients is that behavior change takes time Especially when we're talking about financial behavior. I mean my financial behavior takes time to change Um, and I don't think that that should we should have any different expectations for the uh, Clients that we're working with. Um, so yes, we have to communicate better. We have to provide financial education We have to provide incentives to to uh to Try and change this behavior But I think at the end of the day we it this this work does require a certain degree of patience And recognition that behavior change is a long-term process The fourth point um is is just something that I really liked from the trends paper I think that was in the conclusion, which was that in many of these programs that were Evaluated and studied there was often individual champions that were really pushing the drive and the change So for example in peru, there was a particular champion inside the government that really drove things In fiji. It was a donor community that really drove innovation and use of of um card based systems linked to accounts In kenya. It was the private sector In the banking the banking sector that really drove innovation. And so I think this idea of of Finding an individual champion is quite powerful. Um, and I liked that that um, that point that was made in the trends paper And then finally my last comment is that I think the path To get to linking government payments and financial inclusion will really look different in each place The path will really be different It will look different in in each country and it will look different over time And by that I mean that there's while we like to try and come up with a cookie cutter formula I just don't think that exists And I think that um, you know infrastructure build out in these countries is changing so rapidly that what something looks like today In india will look very different a year from now or two years from now Which we've already seen in this increased data that we have available on the website So, you know, brazil and colombia while there's many similarities in those countries and they're in close proximity to one another Their their path to linking their social cash transfers to financial inclusion looks very different. Um, if you compare India and pakistan also similar in many respects their pathway looks extremely different South africa and kenya. So I could make a lot of these comparisons I think we tend to want to have this formula. This is what you do here you go But unfortunately, it's really not that easy and it's not that simplistic and so I think the value of a website Like what we are launching today is that it does let us compare and contrast Among these programs. It does help us draw useful lessons And and gather information for what we're working on. I'll stop there Great. Thank you. So Hello, um, so horde, I think sarah said some provocative things about the business case And the promise that these types of linkages hold for the private sector So moving on, I think it's a you know, perfect That you're sitting right next to her so that you can provide your perspective from city From where you sit at city into, you know, why this is something of interest to to the bank Yes, absolutely. And thank you First of all, let me start by talking about the website And in all the countries that we operate we have a very close dialogue with Public sector clients government regulators and and basically the information that we see in the website helps us enhance our dialogues and and find the ways to have more constructive conversations On how to improve efficiencies around the payments of all these benefits and subsidies And second of all is that it also helps us understand the data to develop products that will eventually reach A the unbanked populations that are recipients of these of these benefits So I think it is a very impressive work and we definitely we will be users of the website Now to provide a context to what city does in the space of financial inclusion Let me just provide you with two two basic facts First of all is that obviously we are a financial Institution when we provide financial services in over a hundred countries where we are present And we are very much committed to emerging markets So that's the the The one fact the basic fact and the second one is that financial inclusion is at the core of our mission because that's what we do It's been defined as a key priority of the bank from the highest level And uh, there are many different areas and product and business groups around the bank that are involved in financial inclusive a financially inclusive initiatives So when you combine these two together and having in mind that in most of these countries that we operate even in development markets There are large percentage percentages of people that are outside The formal financial system. Well, that creates An impressive business opportunity So for us and I want to be very clear about this for us financial financial inclusion is a business opportunity that it is supported by some philanthropic Let's say investments from the city foundation So the way we Interact with all these initiatives around inclusion Can be Summarized in in let's say five four or five different areas. First of all as I was saying the the work of the city foundation as the one of the early Developers of the micro finance Industry working in very early stages But by providing a strategic funding to Microfinance groups all over the world But also on doing a lot of research and thought leadership and understanding the dynamics before the Private sector of the bank was even thinking of of reaching These segments. So there's a very important thought leadership Strategy and and the role that the city foundation plays Also from the financial education side, we all know that To provide financial products and services to the unbanked without building financial capabilities in the clients would be Or would be perhaps you know, wouldn't be the ideal scenario. So they are very Oriented at financial inclusion as a financial education as well Now that that's also there's also the work that we do from our businesses And let me start by describing a bit what we do in micro finance Which is an area that we have been very active commercially speaking For the last Seven years seven eight years We today as Jamie was saying in the introduction we have commercial relationships with over 150 micro finance institutions in over 40 countries and that is providing them With not only funding but the services And products that they require to expand their outreach In all these various countries, which can be cash management base, which can be Hedging for for the funding that they receive in hard currencies And all of the other products and services that this in financial intermediaries required to do what they do There are also some nation work that we're doing with around the supply chains We uh In most of the things we do Obviously, we we understand and we acknowledge that we are not really present at that level with the branches in the rural areas or The isolated communities so we partner partner with mfis with micro finance institutions But now we're partnering even more closely with them Our corporate clients the big off takers the the companies that are buying Our cultural products in rural areas in the countries where we operate So how can we work together to uh reach the micro producers? That will help these corporate clients diversify their supply chains And how can we on top of that work not only on funding but on transactional products and And ideas that would help bring these micro producers into the financial system There's also partners partnerships around savings that we're working on There's a lot here in the us But there are some other ideas that we are that we are working on a To some of them aim that children to start the inclusion from very early ages so that they can Start saving with educational goals. There's a successful program that we're running in in the city of san francisco Partnering with the with the government of the city of san francisco, which is really interesting We will be trying to replicate elsewhere So savings and I would go more different to savings later Is a very important area of focus for us and that Finally, there is the mobile financial services space which links most of these initiatives Together because that's going to be the enabler for for all these farmers to start receiving their payments or making their payments Through mobile phones obviously in our dialogues with governments as is the the purpose of of the year of this event how can we link these Transactions and these frequent payments that they're getting With mobile wallets so that we can understand the dynamics and build the products as I was saying So there are tremendous business opportunities for us in all these countries Now just to finish just let me give you three quick examples Of of some of the things that we're doing in this space Obviously, there are many examples around microfinance and funding and capital markets and things we do But talking more precisely about payments A perhaps one of the most relevant initiatives that we launched Was one announced last week With USAID that this new recently mentioned briefly and this partnership is quite interesting because The objective is to really accelerate the adoption of of mobile financial services in the countries where Both USAID and city have a presence So this will really leverage The tremendous experience and expertise that USAID has in all these countries and the presence and the dialogue that city also has with governments with regulators to see how we can In the in the countries where the there are the focus of the of the partnership how we can bring in At least 20 percent of the subscribers of mobile mobile phones As active mobile wallet users by 2016 So these obviously are countries that are strategic for city in terms of business, but also Countries where USAID has a great presence For example, in latin america, Haiti, peru and colombia In africa, well, it's mainly east africa, kenya, tansania, sambia Uganda Or in asia, india and the philippines So that's a very important commitment that the bank is making Now the Second example is and this is not something new. This is something that we all the time that we do all the time in the payments and collections space In in this new new world of mobile financial services well cities becoming the enabler in most of these markets the aggregator of platforms where we can really link all these payments to whether it is a prepaid cards or mobile Wallet city wallets where they are available Or with existing mobile wallets that are there in the market like we do in kenya or or we're going to do in in Haiti So this is this is another key trend that we're following closely and where we have Basically through our city transactional services business unit being very active And also around the research and the thought leadership of all this and what this represents and The third example is is something that jamie you're very familiar with is the Pro savings initiative where ct and and the idb calf The international development for a research center have a partner is how can we start linking the The cash conditional transfers to savings products And this is basically a competitive fund where we receive ideas from various players across the region in latin america And we basically select the ones that we think are the best and fund the initiatives for Some of these intermediaries that we think can develop successful products to start offering Micro savings to to these recipients So that's in a nutshell What we do in the space it's it's Quite complex because we work around inclusion from many different areas and many different businesses But as I said at the beginning, this is this is what we do and it's part of the mission And the and really the core of of city's business globally Thanks Thanks, Jorge and sabba before you before you jump right in Just as a by way of introduction So Jorge says that part of their usa partnership objective is to have 20 percent If I heard you correctly of your mobile phone users Using the m wallet by 2016 But I also hear that UNDP or maybe the UN system overall my being if i'm overstating it is going cashless So i'm wondering is is a city being Under ambitious here or let's hear about it. Well, first I just want want to say that We're very proud of our collaboration with new america foundation over the last three years And it's great to see that I mean we'd see gap in everyone that this whole concept of going electronic Payment system is not in any more a new concept, but it's been adopted by national governments in rwanda and others and UNDP Yes, we do have a going cashless sort of initiative. We're more on the program side meaning that we see in our operations I think over a billion dollars worth of annually of disbursements whether for salary payments election observer resettlement grams cash for work and a host of different modalities and we're trying to see What what are the initiatives that we can move to towards, you know, electronic Sort of payment systems as an example. We recently launched in Haiti A housing repair initiative Mobile enable which was the first of its type in the world where we just didn't think about just the payment side But also thinking about in terms of a housing value chain Where construction companies were involved and others and I think this is the big message from our side at the UN as a program is If you really push this agenda, you should really think about the outcomes that you're trying to Meet and think about the role of financial inclusion in its various forms as enabler in achieving these health outcomes These you know different sort of livelihood outcomes. Whoever makes sense and depend depending on context At a country level the united nation development program, which is the organization I work for is in charge of the whole UN country team So we have a Sort of a view looking at coordinating all the various UN activities So we have an advocacy role, but also we have an implementation Role and in from that perspective, we really see the aid accountability and transparency agenda as the most important first objective for ours And some of the efficiency that you mentioned coming from our side I think there's a sort of subtle perspective evidence-based perspective in terms of how we see the savings agenda Especially in fragile states. It's really not the sense that people are saving and seeing savings grow incrementally It's more of a storage mechanism where money is left in the account And is used for transactions and that's really what the evidence we see in a lot of our projects So while we believe there is long-term potential for financial inclusion It's in these fraud especially these emergency fragile and all these things We really are really looking at it from the perspective of providing transactional accounts for people And lower cost identity on all these sort of other stuff. So we've been actually doing some work looking at non-ccts Looking at emergency cash to a non-cct emergency cash transfer about 170 Sort of projects that we did a tabulation and we saw that Still 50% of those projects use cash envelopes for pediatric give out cash In terms of accounts, it's around three to five percent And in terms of it's basically 25% of electronics So it's consistent actually ironically with the cgap data of two years ago for these But you're looking at very difficult areas of of the world And in although in some of those countries, the infrastructure has been built like in Haiti and others It's there are still a lot of challenges What are these challenges that we see? I would say there are four major challenges Is one is to convince governments and institutions to adopt electronic money For non central bank or ministry of finance Changing the way of doing business is very difficult as you know And there's also a significant lack of capacity at an institutional level Especially when you're dealing with people who are dealing with recurring You know emergencies and other things so building that is one one issue The second one is for donors multilaterals and others We the contract modalities we have are a bottleneck thinking about how Executing agencies are able to disperse cash for example in some cases you might have upfront savings But if you outsource I mean part of the rfps those kinds of things are not taken to account I mean, what do you do with that? Thirdly, I think the advocacy agenda broadly I mean the UNDP's work is not only in fragile states and emergencies. It's broadly in 166 countries But we have found that the message where the message comes from is important for example The electronic cashless sort of agenda That people do not want to associate it with certain countries or others I mean they really want to see as an inclusive message that's shared And it is still seen with a lot of suspicions for a number In especially in these fragile Conditions so the political context has to take into account and the final one is really the infrastructure The investment required to upgrade the systems And identities should be taken into account I would just add a couple points about the website, which I think is great In terms of the data. I think one point is about Research versus analysis for those responsible for implementing programs You know, how could you make this more accessible and use for someone who wants to start? I know CGAB has methodology and tools But I think there has to be some kind of links to that for those to have some kind of first level introduction The second one in fragile states and emergency context The analysis between The continuum between emergency Towards social protection analysis, you know, how do you go from Basic grants for food security to cash grant towards livelihood towards more so sort of the phasing of this is another thing that needs Some are the colleagues are involved in the cash flowing programs and care and others are very much discussing that and the third one I would make is Aggregate data about the financial side is important But I think it's under important to understand map out where the poor live What is sort of the banking infrastructure? I mean sort of its spatial mappings of that We've done some of that which can reveal some interesting So the perspective access needs to be brought about and the final point I would make is that there is A number of organizations some of them sitting at this table who are very much involved In potentially in launching a new alliance in the coming months Which will be hosted by our sister agency the uncdf Will we call the better than cash alliance which will try to really provide a global advocacy platform around some of these issues Okay, great. Thank you. Saba and last but not least Dorcas so Saba made I think a really interesting point Early on in his remarks saying that You know these efforts need to be outcomes focused and what we're doing on financial inclusion needs to be seen as an enabler Of livelihoods development and livelihoods outcomes And so I think that that's the perspective the care takes and I'd love for you to wrap us up by telling us more about about that Great. Thank you. Jamie Yeah, you know a care in our food and livelihoods justice programming We're focused on how we can work to empower chronically food insecure women to build more sustainable and resilient livelihoods And the core of our work is very much around expanding access to economic opportunities And around that we are very concerned about the The build out the launch the strengthening of social protection programs that provide the sort of inputs that people need in a In a resilient society in a just society that enable people to to live Live healthy and productive lives but we're also concerned with Financial inclusion and the opportunities that and access to kind of Basic financial services can provide to household level to to women two families To be able to really take hold of economic opportunities and build dignified livelihoods What I wanted to do today is just focus a little bit on one particular program. It's called access africa It's a program that's focused on africa We currently work in 26 countries with the aim to expand to 39 sub Saharan african countries It was launched in 2008 And the goal of the program is to lift 30 million people 70 percent of whom are women Um out and their families out of poverty by ensuring Equitable access to a suite of basic financial services. So we're looking at access to savings Loans management of remittances and insurance products um And I just wanted to reflect that as a programmer. I find the movement in mobile technologies Incredibly liberating I've I've had to design various kinds of programs over the years trying to figure out how to get cash and vouchers To people and it's just very exciting to have access to to a growing fleet of mobile technologies But I wanted to step back and say that savings-led approaches to micro finance Is another revolutionary technology, which is currently going to scale and particularly in africa Um and cares approach to this the voluntary savings and loan association is one of the biggest most used technologies or methodologies if you like To reaching poor and low income families and in particular women as I've said women tend to come very freely to this methodology and work work closely In the savings groups that we we have been supporting The basic group methodology I'm not sure how much people know about savings groups approaches Is that you have between 20 and 30 self-selecting participants who form a group together And they save together by purchasing shares in their group. They save usually on a weekly basis Purchasing shares in their group and those shares become loan capital for the group And people can take loans over the cycle of their group And those are approved on a peer basis They're you know, they set up a constitution governing the way in which people can access loans the interest rates the repayment expectations, etc People meet regularly and they do this over nine to 12 months usually and at the end of their cycle nine or 12 months People receive a payout in line with the number of shares that they've bought with the profit that has come through from From the interest that's been repaid on the loans that the group has Has shared and the group can break up at that point But usually what they do is continue into another another cycle Another important aspect of the groups is that most of them are like to set up a small social fund within the group Which is a basic emergency fund if members have a crisis, you know, burials weddings You know shortfall and cash these are the kinds of things that people can access the social fund for And You know, we a lot of different organizations are currently Promoting these kinds of savings models and really helping to take this this revolution if you like to scale And we're beginning to see some figures around how much it costs per head to to to promote savings-led approaches Care last year this has launched our second state of the sector report Focusing on access Africa's work and the work that we do with partners And you're seeing estimates ranging from about $22 to $35 Cost per head for the training and mentoring support for individuals in the groups Over that nine to 12 months period and as I said most groups then continue on and continue for many many years to work together We're also beginning to test a variety of models for scaling up Without requiring the direct intervention of oxfam or care or crs um And you know a model that's taking shape right now, which is quite strong is the village agent model I'll give you the example of a woman from Tanzania Lillian mushi 54 year old farmer mother of eight She is a member of a vsla in her rural community that was established A few years ago And she's become a village agent and what she does is she she Establishes and trains other groups. She's managed to train 13 new groups With an average of about 22 members in the last couple of years Generally village agents charge about $25 to a group for the training and mentoring process And then the groups themselves will Pay about $50 for the materials that they need one of the core materials being a lock box that has three locks on it that Three different people have Access to This all sounds very simple But what we found consistently in our experience and we're documenting more rigorously now within the access Africa program That there are really powerful financial and non financial benefits in the savings group Savings led group approach As a quote from somebody from limpopo in south africa vsl has given us wisdom We know how to work with our money And now and how to make it last and this is from somebody who participated in a research study that we did in south Africa A few years ago to understand the relevance and impact of savings groups within communities heavily dependent on on cash transfers and social grants and what we found is that people were really able to Smoothen consumption and manage between difficult times because they had the cash grant plus the savings group Opportunity and that income smoothening effect is something that we see across savings groups whether or not people are receiving cash transfers Or not And what we're also seeing is that people use their savings their loans And the payouts from from the end of their cycle for basic life improving Investments, you know in Uganda recently You know looking at the number of households that had increased from two to three meals a day We saw an increase from 40 percent to 54 percent in a two-year period in the communities where we've been working So what we also see is that over time The emphasis of people's financial portfolio shifts more towards livelihood improving investments than basic Sort of basic needs investments Looking at some of the work that we've done in Rwanda, for example under the sustainable access to financial services for investment project We can see that at the beginning of the project in 2009 About 35 percent of loans were taken for food purchase, but this was down to nine percent by 2011 whereas 37 percent of loans in 2011 were for actual economic investments Which was a dramatic increase from 14 percent in 2009 So as people learn to save as people learn to take loans from each other from their groups They begin to strengthen their investment in economic opportunities But we also see a lot of important non financial benefits Which I think is is the other pillar the other the other rationale behind expanding Savings led group approaches. We see people learning to work with each other We see people learning about organizing in groups. We see people learning about transparency and and governance And we particularly see women talking about their the changing dynamics for them in terms of negotiating At home and in the community around their rights And decision-making powers and control over and access to resources so I wanted to kind of position savings led approaches group based savings led approaches to Financial inclusion as a as essential programmatic support for cash transfers and for building Financial inclusion You know in many ways we integrate these Unfortunately, dogs. We are kind of running a low on time. We have a you know, and I want to be able to get up to To q&a for others. So if we want to jump to any insights on the Electronic delivery or how you're using mobile or anything on the website, but I hate to cut you anybody off But I do want to allow an opportunity for a little bit of q&a. So If you can Well, I just wanted to reflect that we also have a number of different pilots within access Africa Which are looking at how we strengthen financial linkages from the savings group towards formal financial institutions So looking at accessing micro insurance, for example Looking at setting up savings accounts formal savings accounts And mobile, you know, mobile banking in Tanzania, for example with the mpis vodacom Initiative so, you know, we're beginning to see people strengthen their ability to save Develop their financial literacy and for those groups that are ready start to make linkages with them from their perspective of what they want with financial services Okay, wonderful. Thank you and sorry again to have to to cut you off. I'll stand up again Sure, nobody can see me behind there as I'm sitting down We do have 10 minutes and thank you all so much. Let's before I forget because I want to give her a q&a But let's thank the panelists for their remarks and such a breath of Really interesting initiatives lots of great research I was taking note of all of my things. I was hearing about where innovation is happening So things that we can add to our our website and to our analysis We do have 10 minutes. So I think that we could take just a small handful of questions I'll take a we'll just take a few questions Right away and then have whoever they're directed to answer So if you'd like to raise questions go ahead and raise your hands Okay, we'll start over here with you sir. Yep And please introduce yourself speaking the microphone and please keep your question to one question We'll do thank you. Hi. I'm Statham Demesier from Oxfam America's rural resilience initiative I want to thank the panel's a really interesting presentation My question is actually for you Jorge You mentioned you have a wide network of mfis in rural areas and one thing we found is that some of these mfis Are very concerned about default with their ag populations and clientele Have you thought about or I guess the question is what are your thoughts on the potential for Integrating not just savings with conditional cash transfer programs, but other services like credit and insurance as well Okay, and we'll take a couple more and then we'll answer. So all right other questions Okay, you and then pink shirt after that Sir, yep right right here You're all concentrated in the same zone. This is the energy My question was really about your website and you mentioned early on that You had excluded pensions from the website and I wonder if that meant that you Didn't include any transfer payments to older persons or is that just What kind of definitions did you use because? Transfers to older persons are a really growing program as you know in South Africa brazil So I wonder how you define that for you absolutely. Okay. Sure. All right. And another question here Hi, I'm Casey Anderson. I'm an undergraduate at university of pennsylvania. I was just wondering Out of the different places we've discussed which regulatory framework you think has been the most successful thus far And not only providing oversight But in also balancing the competing goals of inclusion and efficiency In regards to mobile banking. I know that in argentina. They have no oversight on mobile banking and So I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that Okay, then we can take one more if anyone else has a question anybody All right going on. It's gonna try. It's great. Okay. So, um, hortie. Let's start it off with you. Yeah, steve. I think Well, your question has two Sides of different answers In the first of all the first answer is that the micro finance institutions that we work with a can be NGO so they can be Even banks regulated banks regulated non financial institutions. Most of them Have a diverse set of products that they offer to their clients We we've seen innovations around savings, but also around insurance and around housing even so There's a there's many different products that our mf white clients and partners offer and the second one, I'm going to just briefly touch on On the project or well, it is a reality that we're working on in In latin america starting in mexico with the launch of the Partnership that we have with america mobile Which intends to introduce mobile wallets in the in 18 countries of the region starting back mexico I think the great potential of this type of programs is that it will give us enough information On the behavior of the end users The cash flows so that we can start developing appropriate products for these segments It's not a question of delivering the same old products that you would offer to the let's say segment a of the population To to the to the to the base you really need to create new products that are adequate for for this population So these mobile wallets and these flows will give us a hopefully information to start understanding the behavior And and developing and offering other products. So it's not I don't think credit will be the driver for that I think it would be more about savings first around insurance and that credit for the people that that need it Okay, great And to your excellent question about kind of our parameters for inclusion On the website and the decision to exclude pensions. So on the website itself, we do I think clearly articulate kind of what those parameters were and why we decided to include and exclude different things Just a couple of notes. Absolutely. There are pension programs that are targeted toward to the poor and those are included what I think that what we the Exclusion that we decided upon were the universal programs Like some universal level pensions or higher level pensions that are covering wide swaths of the population That are not actually intended as a poverty reduction tool. So if unless That particular program is actually geared towards reaching You know and a and marginalized or impoverished set target population Um, you know, we decided to exclude it We also is just a note decided to exclude any sort of programs that were under 5000 beneficiaries So, you know, because there are lots of smaller programs that are out there and we end up getting into I think a can of worms that we didn't Want to try to Open this early on in the game But we did include some particular examples that we're aware of Perhaps, you know, there are a few that are under 5000 that are on on the website that we did include because they offer Particularly interesting insights and lessons that we thought we thought were relevant. Um, so So to answer your question, we just we if you open up to pensions writ large you're talking all of a sudden that website becomes something else, but But definitely if there's a poverty focus, we we aimed to include it so the question around the opinion of the The most successful regulatory frameworks for mobile banking and oversight I'm gonna give it to you sarah, but if any others want to comment Me too. Yeah, so on mobile banking I mean, so this is a little bit separated from Social protection and and financial inclusion Unless, you know, we really see mobile banking and branches making infrastructure as Providing that enabling environment in that infrastructure to make that linkage I think in a lot of the work that we do with regulators the advice that we give them and some of our own thinking about regulation Um, you know, we've kind of identified a few big topics that essential bank needs to think about and And regulate so one would be around electronic money. How do they regulate electronic money? What are the rules around that who can issue electronic money? And that that gets into the second one, which is what is the role of non banks In this space, can they issue electronic money? Can they use agents? Can they have direct relationships with clients? So what's the role of non banks? The third is around the use of agents So outside of bank branches, what types of transactions are permitted? What types of locations are permitted? And is there a difference between Banking agents and non banking agents and often there is a difference in how that's regulated, which Probably isn't the best practice There should be some level playing field in terms of use of agents by banks and non banks And then the fourth would be around KYC know your customer regulations Especially in in so far as, you know, what type of account opening procedures can happen in agent locations and how do you comply with KYC requirements and then also AML CFT So anti money laundering, which is usually a very big concern for central banks when you start talking about electronic money So those are some of the main topics that regulators need to think about and I think our advice has always been Take a risk based approach and by that we mean There is a certain amount of risk with some of these new technologies But often it's not as much as you might think and if you can, you know cap account balances or cap transaction sizes or cap transaction frequencies Then you're controlling some of that risk instead of just not allowing it at all So take a risk based approach to some of these categories of of how branchless banking and mobile money systems develop Okay, thank you, Sarah. So we're about a time, but I want to with the two minutes that I have left Want to ask one last final question of all of the panel? So starting off the discussion the panel discussion I was mentioning where that I think each of you bring a perspective An experience that demonstrates where innovation is happening at this intersection There are other two threads of our analysis that we're hoping to develop through this website and the initiative that we're working on looking at where innovation is possible and And new ideas for at this intersection of cash transfers and financial inclusion So it's a very difficult question, but I'm going to ask each of you to Tell me what you think one example Down the line where you think innovation at this intersection is either possible or new ideas that you would like to see explored This could be a plate, you know a country where something's happening products that you'd like to see Modifications to current systems anything that you can think of I'm going to leave it wide open For you to excuse me say what you want to say whatever is on your mind But but as the experts in this space, I thought that we should take advantage of you being here to to get your Get your opinions. So I don't know if I if I should Who wants to start? Sarah since you went last You just were speaking last time. Let's start with Saba and then we can wrap around It goes back to my overall point And sarah hinted at it is that there's a clear disconnect Also, we see between the social protection side and the financial inclusion And I think as much work as we can do in building new products that integrate Sort of you know Different types of livelihood outcomes But while at the same time creating financial in the housing and health and all these things I think that's really the cutting edge Of what we can do because there's enough proof about you know payments and Payment system. There's still a lot to go. But that the other one is still it's very conceptual It's the practicalities of you know, but it still needs to be figured out Awesome. Dorges, would you like to go next? Yeah, I mean, I think what's on on our mind that carries You know if savings groups are what client poor clients want We should work with that And in order to enable them to access a fleet of financial services We need some more creative thinking around What's different about a group from an individual? And that was actually I wanted to make a point about regulatory environments One of the things that we're grappling with in a number of countries right now is Government and financial formal financial providers Recognizing groups and thinking creatively with us about how to work with them The work that we're doing with in Pesa in Tanzania is very interesting People have a mobile phone to move mobile money It's treated like the lockbox with the three people who have the padlocks Not everybody has the pin. It's shared across members of the group This is a basic innovation and this will help Clients where they are begin to move on to that financial inclusion ladder Great, Ori Well, I'm more on the optimistic side of things. I think if we compare where we are today Versus where we were three four years ago. This now is quite different a in terms of the The priority that this represents for for for different stakeholders including governments and regulators What we're seeing in terms of regulation in in some countries in Latin America where you can now open an account on a very thin KYC at a place that is different from a traditional bank branch Much closer to the rural communities where most of the of our our banked Individuals leave That's a lot of progress that that we've made of course. There are still lots of challenges of course still early days for for especially for mobile financial services but I think there will be a lot of opportunities for for banks to get better at this and to really understand the needs of The end users and start coming up with new and more efficient More accessible affordable and convenient products for the segments of the population Thanks Yeah, I would say um, I I also am optimistic in terms of I think we've identified well the trajectory of where we need to go I think the only you know word of caution is what I had mentioned before in terms of I think we need to have More patience and how long it will take us to get there But I think we've kind of identified even through you know the comments That all of the panelists have made, you know We kind of know what the moving pieces are we need to figure out having more data is useful more experimentation is useful just the prevalence of of of events and papers and and You know other types of forums that discuss this is is Proof of that. I think what some of the excitement that I see And potential game changers one in particular if I just you know draw on a specific example is unique ID systems. So with the unique ID authority of india UID AI I think that's a potential game changer because you're really talking about changing the way KYC is done for sure but also really Enabling online Functionality trying to get away from some of the offline Functionality that I think does kind of pigeon hold recipients in a closed loop system and as infrastructure is being built out Then I think we have less Need for some of those offline solutions and and just the potential UID AI has with many risks for sure It's think it will really change the way government payments are made in india Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, I think that that really about Does it in terms of time? So I want to thank everybody for being here There are some papers outside if you'd like to learn more about this topic Initiative I invite all of you please to check out the website Be in touch with us provide us with your questions your comments on all of that And as I think as well indicated here continue to watch this space. It's moving fast. Thank you Thank you very much guys