 I'm here in the Geneva studio of the ITU with Mr Alfred Hannick, the executive director of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. Hello, thanks for being with us today. Hello. Now, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, global network of policymakers and regulators, what is the main aim of this organization? The main aim is, in fact, to fill a critical gap on the globe, which is to be a mechanism for knowledge sharing and peer learning among regulators from developing and emerging economies on financial inclusion policy and regulatory issues. We have seen that many of these experiences, knowledge is available, but what it really takes to make change happen is a mechanism, a mechanism to share this knowledge, and that's what the Alliance is actually doing. So we are connecting regulators. And to give you one of the examples how that can work, we have seen, for example, in Brazil since the year 2000, that the central bank through actually allowing non-bank agents like, for example, petrol stations or pharmacies or supermarkets to hand out financial services to poor people under a banking license, because this was actually done under an agency agreement where the bank has led to a situation where nowadays each and every municipality in the whole of Brazil is at least connected to one financial service for the poor. And of course, that is now being exported to other members in the network. I know that big progress has been made. I think around 700,000 people now have access to some kind of banking facility, but there's still a lot of work to do. And what do you think are the main issues that are holding things up? What we need to understand is that there are always regulatory barriers, meaning that regulators who normally move cautious, especially against the background of the global financial crisis, there is caution. And of course, that means they are moving carefully when it comes to regulating innovative financial services, especially those ones which are based on technology. Now, these regulatory barriers can be overcome through mutual learning among private sector, apparently, and regulators, and we are supporting this. And this is what you call smart regulation? We call it smart regulation. This means, of course, to allow for proportionate regulation so that it is important to keep the risks in check, but at the same time, it is, of course, important also not to over-regulate, because that would actually lead to more exclusions of the poor. Could you give me a specific example of smart regulation that's improving the situation? Well, one example, which is very recent, is again from Kenya. Kenya has been in use quite a bit, but there is one innovation which is not so well known up to now. There is a bank which is called the Commercial Bank of Africa, and this bank was a very small bank like a couple of years ago, 250,000 customers. But through the partnership with the telecommunication operator and using the channel of a mobile phone, this bank has grown to 6 million customers, which is now the biggest bank in Kenya, and really handing services to the poor through the mobile. That means you can now even obtain a loan through the mobile phone. You don't have to see a bank branch anymore, and you can make a deposit. This is huge progress and, of course, a role model for many other countries. Let's get back to your organisation in particular. What are you doing in all this? Is it linking different countries together, different areas? And also, what's your role within this process, the focus group on digital financial services at the ITU? Well, I think our task is basically to allow for mutual knowledge sharing and what we call peer learning. And this is, I think, very attractive among developing and emerging country regulators. We do it through many ways, through working groups, through visits, exposure trips, but of course also joint production of knowledge products and so forth. Now, through the ITU focus group, I should say this is a new terror for us, but it becomes increasingly important to also work across regulatory domains. In other words, to allow for learning among financial regulators and telco regulators, because let's say, for example, the security of the system to hand out mobile financial services is very important, the stability of the signal, consumer protection issues. So in other words, many things that are regulated by telco regulators are preconditioned to make mobile financial services work, and we are trying to allow for this mutual exchange as well. There are lots of groups out there like yours that are trying to promote financial inclusion. Do you think that at the moment they are working in concert or is there duplication? Do you feel that there's a good ecosystem here? I feel there is a good ecosystem, I must say. I think, especially in the past two to three years, we see an emerging consensus, a convergence even among the players. And this is all centered around what we call the country-led approach, meaning that countries themselves determine where they want to go. Countries are no longer told what to do. And it is very apparent that countries make their own commitments and then follow these objectives through very systematic implementation of policy reforms. AFI has been promoting this quite a bit. And I must say that you see this kind of spirit of country-led approach also reflected in the newly realized sustainable development goals by the UN. So we see a convergence which is actually driven by such an umbrella of a common understanding even under the UN. This is very good. Well, we're speaking today around about a year after the focus group was set up and we're looking at various working groups reporting back. Are you pleased with the progress that's been made or do you think more work could have been done over the last year? Well, I'm not here to judge on the work what has been done because I must say for us we know how difficult it is at the beginning of creating a network to get things going, to get people engaged, to keep them engaged. And we should not forget that this kind of activity that we see here comes always on top of your usual workload. But having said that, I think we see a great engagement. I have seen today that there are many more telco regulators in the room than last year. So we have an increasing demand for these issues. And I do understand that the groups have really identified the major topics which is, for example, in the space of digital financial services, the whole issue around interoperability, but also consumer protection issues. So I think there's good progress, but of course it will take some time to get real momentum and of course to get a broad participation from all over the place. But I think you are on a very good way here. And finally, when can we see financial inclusion for all? Well, this is a very good question and various organizations, of course, come with different forecasts. I think financial inclusion will always be an issue, no matter whether we are fully included or not. You can see that from the financial crisis in countries that show full inclusion, you see serious issues around consumer protection, financial education, and so forth. So I think the challenge is going to be permanent. Even if we have managed to close the access gap, which could maybe be around 2030, we will still see other issues around usage and quality of financial services for all. So I think this is an issue which is going to be there to stay. Afrohanik, thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much for the pleasure being here.