 Welcome to the ITU studio in Geneva where I'm very pleased to be joined today by Jamie Zimmerman who is a senior program officer for financial services for the poor for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Jamie, welcome to the studio. Thanks for having me. I wanted to ask you about your work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Let's talk about security challenges. What does the Foundation see as the main security challenges facing digital financial services and fintech for financial inclusion? At the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the financial services for the poor team, we're really focused on ensuring safe and robust financial access for everyone and we're seeing so much innovation, lots of new technologies, new products and services, new infrastructure, new systems that are being built and we're so excited about that. At the same time with that comes a lot of new threats and challenges and unknowns about security and we see lots of different ways in which security threats and potential risks can come into the system and it's hard to say that some are potentially so much more severe than others. There are lots of different ways in which security threats can cause risk to a poor person, to a community, to an entire system and so it's hard to identify just one. At the same time when we think about some of the big security threats that we're seeing within financial and ICT infrastructure around cybersecurity, around vulnerabilities from the technologies and also the products and services that are being layered onto those technologies and I think one thing that we're quite quite concerned about is the systemic risks that are possible when you start to have all of these different types of innovations and we don't know where different threats could be coming from so we're quite concerned about the risks to the infrastructure itself and to the systems that really need to be strong and reliable in order for them to work really well for the poor. Particularly in countries I suppose which are using old technology, older networks and so the system is much more vulnerable. Yeah and it's in part about the system itself, maybe their old systems and now we're trying to layer new technologies onto them but it could also be the threats in what we don't know about governing those systems and so perhaps the technology itself has some vulnerabilities and we need to address that and how we create technology but we also need standards and rules and regulations that govern those technologies and right now there's so much we don't know and so it makes creation of not only the tools to ensure really strong technologies but also kind of the foundations governing those things, governing those systems to be strong enough to protect people and protect the systems as we innovate on them so it's a little bit of both, it's the technologies and so the kind of the rails that we're creating and it's also the rules that will govern those rails. And your essentially your aim is to promote digital financial inclusion, you're looking to make sure that people are really involved in this new world in terms of making their digital financial transactions using their mobile phones. That's right. But you're obviously making sure that people don't get derailed and that their trust is within the system itself, is that right? Yeah, that's right, what we see in all of the potential value of being financially included and the opportunity that digitization provides to people to have more reliable, closer access to their resources, easier ability to transact, to take out a loan, to send money home or to another country as a remittance, all of those things are so much easier through digital. At the same time, there's now a greater threat of fraud, apps that don't work, connections that break that lead to lack of consumer confidence in the system and also potentially more risky vulnerabilities like not just the loss of confidence but loss of funds. And so we want to ensure that as we promote digital financial inclusion for everyone, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, that at the same time we are very seriously analyzing and addressing any of the potential risks that could be coming from those systems and the products and services too. Now security and data privacy are obviously going to be playing a key role in winning consumer confidence and catalyzing the adoption of fintech for financial inclusion. I just really wanted to ask for your perspective on this really and if that is the case, how are you going to encourage that? Yeah, absolutely. Consumer confidence is critical. There's no way that we're going to achieve meaningful usage of digital financial services or even the adoption of even at a base level if there's not trust in the system or if there are concerns about data privacy breaches or misuse of that data. And so really strong systems and infrastructure is required but so are rules and regulations that are going to standardize the way that we govern these systems and use the data and protect the privacy of consumers and ensure that it's not going to be mishandled or misappropriated for any sort of nefarious reasons. So it is absolutely critical. If we ignore risks of data privacy and security, then we really run the risk of erosion of consumer confidence and increase in consumer risks and that I think would defeat the purpose of what we're trying to achieve. So we take it quite seriously. So the message really has to come across to the telcos and also telecom providers there and also to the financial service companies as well. That's right. It's multi-pronged for sure in the digital world. It's not just the telcos or the financial service providers. These are now two systems that are working together. And so that collaboration between them and the coherence and collaboration in the systems that they use and the products and services that they're offering and that they're partnering to co-develop is really critical. And so in forums like the ITU, the security clinics that we're here for this week where we can bring together the ICT practitioners, the telcos, the technologists that are working on the tools to help to mitigate the risks but also the financial services regulators and others that are really looking at the rules that are governing access can come together and find that common ground for where they need to collaborate, the problems that they need to solve together and have a really great mechanism for achieving that. What role can international organizations like ITU play to enhance security in digital finance and fintech? So the international organizations in particular, considering the ITU has an incredible convening platform and voice to bring to bear in digital financial inclusion, particularly around the infrastructure and ensuring safe and reliable technology, connectivity, and the space, like I was just saying, to bring together stakeholders from many different sectors, the policy makers within the ministries of ICT, those working with the financial institutions, and then the operators, the telco providers and the other security professionals and practitioners having them all come together and advance a common purpose and prioritize at the cutting edge of what we need to do to ensure that the systems that are being created, the infrastructure that we're building, everything that we're going to layer on top of it is done in a way that is actually going to transform people's lives. I think ITU has been doing this through the work with the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative and before with their work with Digital Financial Services for some time, and it's proven quite successful and we've been so thrilled to partner with the ITU to move this forward and partner with them in the last couple of years. Now, there are still billions of people that are not connected, not using Digital Financial Services and obviously you're trying to encourage the poorest end of the spectrum to get connected. What do you think is going to encourage the most? I think that what will encourage the poor the most is accessibility and utility. So it has to be easy and relevant in their lives and it has to be trustworthy. So there might be something at a distance that seems like could be interesting, but it's at a distance and I don't have the time with all of the other things happening in my life to go and seek that thing out. So it has to be accessible and close. But even if it's accessible, I need to be able to use it. It needs to be relevant to me and I need to be able to trust that it's going to be there for me when I need it. And so I think that those elements are all part of the menu of things that have to come together for it to really work for the most vulnerable, most marginalized, perhaps most distant populations. But with the technologies that we're seeing today and the innovations that are coming and with all the work that is happening to ensure that these systems and products and services are not only accessible, but are reliable, are trustworthy, are high quality. I think that we're going to get there and we're going to get there soon. And on the flip side, the digital financial service providers, are they interested in these little micro clients there? Then we're not talking about large sums of money with some of the people. Of course, if they are, like you say, they're the poorest of the poor on that. Well, I suppose I would point to examples like what we've seen in the last couple of years in India, what we've seen in China, what we're seeing coming out of the big global platforms like Facebook and Alibaba and Google, they're developing massive systems that are bringing millions, in some cases, billions of people online and enabling them to transact and manage their financial resources in a digital way. I think that if we look at the direction they're headed, I think it's a pretty good indication of market viability of this segment. So that's my answer to that. Okay, and do you think there'll be a time in the future where we won't be using cash anymore? Are there all the transactions will be online or will be digital? No, I don't, actually. I think I may have a certain point of view that I don't think that cash will always be king, necessarily, but I don't think that we'll ever have a time in which cash is completely irrelevant in the world. And it's not the foundation's position to promote cashlessness. I think what we're promoting is access to services that are going to be most relevant, most meaningful to the poor. And if it happens to be that in certain situations that remains cash because the systems aren't there yet, then we would not argue against that at all. But we believe that increasingly we're going to have systems that will include everybody. And once we do, everyone will have the option to decide how they want to live their financial lives and whether that's in cash or digital. And we think that we have a hunch that digital will be chosen, but cash will not go away completely. And hopefully in a safe and secure manner, especially after the next few days here, where you're going to be looking at the reports and all the findings and all the hard work that's been done over the last year. Absolutely. Great, so, Jamie Zimmerman, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.