 So welcome everyone again at our last press conference already for the World Economic Forum on Latin America. On a very important topic here today I'm Peter Vannum, senior media manager at the World Economic Forum and I'll be joined here today to talk about the topic of economic inclusion worldwide and also specifically in Mexico with three guests here right next to me is Jacobusio that is vice president global insights at MasterCard right next to him is his colleague from from Mexico Carlos Montaño welcome Carlos vice president government services and solutions at MasterCard Latin America and also the former head of Bansefi government owned bank here in Mexico and then lastly but certainly not least is Rosario Perez the CEO and president of Pro Mujer which is a social enterprise I should say which is active in five countries and serves 300,000 clients in your case clients are women to include women in the economic mainstream in society so we're gonna be talking about economic inclusion and the reason why this is an important topic is because as you may remember from the spring meetings of the of the World Bank just last month in the world there are still 2 billion people that are unbanked and this is the so-called financial inclusion or in their case the financial exclusion 2 billion people that means by between one third and one fourth of the world population is still unbanked and what makes the problem even bigger is that financial exclusion is only a part of economic exclusion which is broader and so that's what we're gonna be talking about here today both let's say on the global level and also brought back to here in Mexico and here in Mexico it's also important I must say because I read that also in Mexico only 40% of people of age 15 and over actually have a formal bank account and that is not uncommon in the region I saw in Brazil for example it's the highest in the region but it's still only two-thirds of adults or I'd say people age 15 and over and across the region it's actually lower so great so welcome then we're gonna start with that that you're gonna be talking about the connectors project that you that you initiated and and you'll be talking about what it is who are these connectors and why is this is matter to economic inclusion yes thank you Peter and thank you to World Economic Forum also for inviting us to actually premiere this is the first time we'll be talking publicly about this research we think it's groundbreaking research and we think it could be game-changing research because what it does at the end of the day is it gives public private partnerships the ability to scale their programs for the economically excluded and so in a way it provides a blueprint an actionable blueprint for the construction of programs for the further refining of programs on the ground so I'd like to talk a little bit about the genesis of the research for the journalists in the room on your chair you'll find a press release also a brief presentation and some screenshots I would invite you and also anybody watching on the on the live stream to go to the website which is insights.mastercard.com slash the connectors project so what were we trying to do with this project there's been a lot of good work done about exclusion much of it has been about financial exclusion or financial inclusion if you want to look at the glass half full and that's it's all good work and a good deal of that work I have to say has been done by mastercard itself and but we were interested in financial inclusion as part of a larger picture as part of economic inclusion certainly it's one of the most important of the three pillars of inclusion that we identified which were access to knowledge access to capital which would be financial inclusion and access to employment but a lot of the work has been quantitative in nature and has been what I'd call top-down and that's fine because you have to have the numbers in place if you're going to make a case for anything but what we wanted to do is kind of flip the camera around take it from a top-down perspective and put it from the perspective of people on the street as it were in the developing world what does it feel like to be economically excluded what does it feel like to be on a journey to economic inclusion what are the factors that you face what are the what is the perspective that you have so to do this we went to four markets globally they were Egypt India Indonesia and Mexico and Carlos is going to talk more in more detail about the about the Mexico co-findings but what we did was we did some we did some quantitative research in order to in order to put some statistical bones in place so that there'd be a structure around our insights but we really wanted to talk to people so we engaged in very in-depth conversations with our research subjects and we asked them about what meant to feel economically excluded what did it mean yeah please Peter so this is a research that that shows a situation of people that are economically and financially excluded well it that's a great question one of the things it would be a fallacy to say that financial inclusion is binary it's not true and what people say is that well either you have a prepaid Carter you don't so it's yes or no in fact it's not it's it's because there's access to products which is one thing and the government may mandate a certain degree of access to products and then there's usage and you have to get from a to b so in fact it's not binary but let's stipulate that okay let's say that in fact a financial inclusion is to a certain extent binary economic inclusion is totally a spectrum it's not at all a yes or no question it's a it's a it's a it's a journey along a spectrum so a lot of the people we spoke to felt to a greater or lesser degree yes they did feel economically excluded but the stories that we highlight on the website and I would refer you to the website there are videos there are photographs there's very compelling information there's a white paper that's available in each of the local languages Spanish Arabic Hindi and Malay as well as English of course but what we found out I'm talking to these people were that there were people who felt a degree of economic inclusion and we found that the factor that made for that inclusion that got them on that journey towards being totally included in the municipal the national and even with technology the global economy was this notion of connectors which is why it's called the connectors project now what's a connector a connector is an individual who positively impacts the journey to inclusion moving forward so that the connector is someone an individual who can reach people who are on a journey to economic inclusion and positively impact them all right some of this is very much evident in the literature for instance in the developing world networks are very important we discovered nothing new there networks are important because civil society may not reach everyone so that the importance of personal networks social familial religious tribal these networks become become extremely important that's not new it's in the literature even the notion of the connector the individual who positively impacts your journey to inclusion that's not necessarily new either but what we think we were able to do in this research was delimit them we say there are five of them and we name them and that's really new news because we what we think this allows the p3 community to do and that go ahead please the p3 community public private partnerships okay okay people like Rosario people like Bunthefi working in partnership with governmental agencies to positively impact the journey to inclusion you're going to talk is now true who are what are those five connectors yes and the reason that you're going to do this is because if you impact these people these connectors then you can actually increase financial economic inclusion is that the purpose that's that's the that's the thesis yes okay and what we think is by identifying them and by naming them we're not simply pasting labels on them we're saying that there are certain behaviors associated with being one of these connectors and if you know those behaviors through leveraging of data you can reach them that is really the sharp end of the stick that's where we really think we have discovered something useful and something that can actually help locate more and more people and help them on their journey to inclusion and it helps us to go from that static number here in Mexico for example of 40% of people that have a bank account to go to the actual spectrum which you say is a spectrum from white to black a whole gray spectrum of people that are on that journey towards economic inclusion that's correct okay so our five connectors are the mentor the role model the introducer the business influencer and the and the and the and the and the migrator of these five the most important are the business influencer and the migrator I said that with the sharp end of the stick in fact the tippity top of the sharp end of the stick in fact is are those two people the business influencer who can put you in touch with banks with insurance companies with all sorts of people who can help you move forward and of course the migrator now when we say migrator let me make that clear we're not talking about migrations we're not talking about moving from one economy to another we're talking about more of a social migration we're talking about you there may be no geographical migration involved for instance Ugo who's featured on the website from Mexico City he stayed in Mexico City but his migrator was his grandmother who left to him her stall in Mexico City that he's turned into a thriving electronics repair business so that the migrator really gets you from one place to another it may be geographical so upon the gentleman from Mumbai he did go from his village into Mumbai to learn the textile trade it can be geographical but the journey can also be in your own head so if you can as a an entity if you're a bonsefi or if you're a pro-mujer working with the government if you can locate the business influencer and the migrator at the right moment and and locate these people in a scaled way we think it's a game changer that's the thesis of the research I would again direct you to the website there's a tremendous wealth of information there and I'll tell you a little bit more about how you could even contribute to the growth of this information and when you say game changer you mean we're trying to change the game of financial inclusion and economic inclusion we want to get more people economically included we want to get more people economically included and we think that this is a blueprint for constructing programs that can do that at scale and I think that the real important word there is at scale there's a great deal of great work that's been done but what we think we've discovered is a way to scale those programs by identifying and giving a name and an identity to each of the five yeah of the of the connectors thank you Ted and then maybe to make this a bit more tangible may I ask Carlos could you tell us a bit what that means here in Mexico thank you Peter and thank you thank the thanks for for the world economic front for having us here when we say game changer we actually mean to put things to work now we don't want to do for this piece of research a very good research to remain like an academic document and that's it when we say game changer it's it's basically the purpose of the meetings here and all of these days is how do we make these things move ahead and actually provoke and not just describe so a when we say game changer is how do we actually find these these these people in the different economies in Mexican economy so you can not only give them an account not only give them a debit credit or a prepaid card but actually how do they get out of poverty imagine for a second that you don't have the financial institutions you don't have social enterprises and you don't have governments even in that scenario people are going to try to make it and they will go try to make it on their own these richer research would mean to improve their situation to look for their families to do better right to do to do well so what what this research is finding is they did it somehow and they did it through these connectors so what if social enterprises private companies and government these through these three piece together we work together to help those people to do more of what they're doing to actually even kind of reproduce these characters no to let them know that they're making a great contribution to fight poverty then we can make convert this research into an action item into something that it will actually change move the needle change the numbers of course get you financially included economically included and out of poverty right and so if we bring it down we're here in in Riviera Maya in Mexico so what you're saying is there are people even if we go out the conference center here you would find people that that have those roles of connectors yes maybe they are not themselves aware of the importance of what they do and the fact that they are doing it and if we would be able to make them aware then we could make progress in economic inclusion that's right and another thing couple of things these roles are not static they're actually people change of roles they would probably be a influencer at some time and later become an influencer of someone else and could you bring that down to where we are could you imagine a person outside that you know that we can definitely someone who actually just learn that he can do better by having a bank account a former bank account and when he realizes that he would probably tell his brother hey why don't you get a bank account so he and then he becomes exactly a change role introduce her or he becomes a role model maybe well depends on the level of nearness of that person no it would depend you could even have some of these characters not even be a person actually could be a public figure a TV figure that you have you see somehow and you say make sure change your mind make you start this journey so it could be someone who's really close to you it could be someone who is not that close to you but somehow influences you okay very well and so and could you tell us how how you would how you would suggest to do that here in Mexico definitely partners that you see I think that no one can do it alone no so to actually find these people is not an easy task most governments actually don't have the tools or the resources to actually reach that deep into the society because initially we assume of course that if we talk about things like poverty elevation or economic inclusion or employment we think of governments as the ones who bring it about and what you're saying they think it's important also Carlos that we say because you you you have actually two hats or you had two heads you were heading a state-owned government bank and now you're at the private sector what you're saying is that that the government in the private sector should should work together to it definitely there's no way that governments can do it alone right and and they don't have the the tools that they don't have the the knowledge that social enterprises like promulher actually does have so by partnering with such institutions government can increase and multiply its reach by by by a large proportion and by doing so you are building an alliance that will actually literally move the needle via game changer and get people faster out of poverty right and may I ask them maybe Rosario because you've been introduced here is going to play an important role in bringing this about but but how would this work for you and and Rosario you again you are the CEO and president of promulher and you work with women around Latin America in five countries including here in Mexico for to include women in the economic mainstream so so how do you how do you relate to what we've just talked about well first of all I want to thank the World Economic Forum and very much MasterCard because MasterCard has been an incredible partner to us they've given us a million dollars plus you know and very you know to address a few issues that we have both technologically and in fact they supported the opening of a branch here in Milpa Alta in Mexico City I feel that this research of the connectors is incredibly important because it is helping us understand behaviorally which is very important what are the the the connectors or the catalyzers for actual change and I know that the business influencer is an important one in the migration person but I think all of them actually as I read them they all relate to promulher you know so if you talk about the mentor you know we have we have assessores which are the people who go around the communities promoting you know to come to promulher and these people are you know promoters then we have our assessores who are actually developing a relationship a trusting relationship with with the clients who mentor them and you know if I think about the business intelligence promulher is business intelligence because we have a brand in the communities and so we actually are making sure that these people when they come to us they begin to be part of the whole economic financial formal process because we're a formal organization and we haven't said this but we also have 2,000 employees most 10% of them were at some point clients and they actually then you know they begin to move you know the they transform themselves into a different type of connector and so I I am a big believer and you know we've done our own research in in not as as of the same nature but in terms of trying to understand this the drivers of you know because we need to understand to get financial inclusion widespread I am a great believer that you cannot do it you know everybody's talk about technology yeah technology can help enormously but you need to understand what are the needs of this people what are they going through you know which in your examples are pretty very very vivid you know so you understand the groups and what makes those groups tick what was the the turning point that helped them get to the next level so I am extremely excited about this research okay well it almost sounds like we've solved the issue but that's of course not the case so maybe let's let's open it up for for a few questions now from the audience is it clear what we're doing here and and what would you want to ask about this this project and maybe we can ask for me from Mexico yeah go ahead hi I just want to ask you were talking about how to multiply this effect when you're talking about how to multiply it are you talking about that maybe in the government or in these social organizations or maybe through banks you act as a migrator and facilitate these kind of role models to people in maybe a new model of of financial educations for people that are now excluded in in the banking system it's a great it's a great question and and it's it's it's a tough concept to grasp the the the notion of these of these connectors is that they're archetypes their roles it's not that someone becomes a business influencer as a career or as a business influencer you know when they leave for work in the morning and then they come back home and that's their job it's a role that people play that they can put aside and assume another role or assume none of the other roles of being a business influencer what we're saying is is that these are individuals on the ground that private enterprise social enterprises and governments can reach and if they reach them at scale meaning many of them within an economy within a city like Mexico City that that the the possibilities for advancing economic inclusion become that much greater we're not saying that we've we we're not saying that we've discovered any kind of panacea for for economic exclusion rather what we think is we have a very powerful tool conceptual tool that the three components that I mentioned which are governments private enterprise and social enterprise working together can use to locate these people on the ground so that and then give them the tools that they need right give them the tools that they need at scale so it's not just Ugo because there are a hundred thousand in Mexico City if not five hundred thousand in Mexico City we located one but what we think the technique does because we can tell you what the behaviors of a business influencer are we give you the the the ability to reach if not the whole five hundred thousand a hundred thousand and you're that much farther ahead again again the government wouldn't be able to do it alone so if you actually know that certain organizations are helping to promote that more of such connectors exist then you can better target the public policies and then the effort from the government side together with social enterprises is much more powerful so let me get that right so what you're saying is that previously if if governments they said well we want to achieve more economic inclusion that they might have thought let's do it through a increasing financial inclusion and let's maybe just start a network of banks with branches all over the country let's open accounts or give open accounts give people bank cards and I said okay we reached financial inclusion great and what you're saying is well not really so maybe we achieve financial inclusion maybe not even but certainly not economic inclusion and if you want to reach economic inclusion and you want to talk about the how it's it's about reaching these five connectors and that can be done for example through social say it said that because she said you need to know these people no so you don't you don't get to know them by being a far apart from them a social enterprises can really touch them understand them and then actually do something more precise more specific for them okay right because you know just having access to a checking account I don't think it's financial inclusion and we know that that if it's not used you know which it's one of the issues that we face with financial inclusion is that it's about and I think Ted said it it's about access and usage you know and I think with this type of research you are getting to what are the you you know what motivates people to use it you know so maybe as a follow-up question so where do we go from here so now do we know that we have these five connectors and and and we still have that same goal of increasing economic inclusion here in here in Mexico what what is our next step what what do we recommend now what do we what do we ask and who do we ask to do that you could probably better shape your public policies no we know that we need the financial instruments but that's not enough so in the case of Mexico and this could be just an example of course once if he's doing a great job that great job needs to be tied up and and leveraged with the actions of organizations such as promulges so one idea would be to actually look in the government which government agency would be willing and able to help such organizations and to let them know there's a blueprint not to let them know you know what we have identified this and if you focus your actions on trying to reach these people you will have more impact this research was was new to Rosario it will certainly be new to lots of other organizations promote her like then probably when they hear about this they go like okay we can pinpoint this we know these people we we we've known them all alone but all along but we didn't know what else we can do with them how else we can foster what they're doing how else we can impulse them I understand it maybe there's a follow-up question from the room as well no so maybe just a final question then let me ask so at the World Bank meetings the ambition was set to reach full financial and economic inclusion by 2020 that's only five years from now what would be your top recommendation to get there and do you think that we can actually achieve that who wants to really to get to work fast and and we've committed in mastercard we're committed to that because we actually in the in the end reunions we we pledge a goal of reaching 500 million new customers for that date and in order to get to that we need to apply every tool that we have in our back to achieve that this is a great tool the connector study is a great tool we cannot do it alone we need we need the help of course of governments comments would need our help would need the help of organizations such as a promulgatory so the idea is let's sit all together and and discuss how can we together a provoke these in a faster much faster way no design public policies around certain targets and this could be one as as as they were saying this is not panacea this is not the solution but this is a good a good way to start okay well with that maybe I want to leave one last minute to tit to give his conclusion or summary and then we'll end it there thanks Peter you know this is a work in progress it's very much what Carlos was saying that that now's the time to try and and and and socialize this work and work with governments and social enterprises to come up with the programs that are gonna it what it acts as we hope it can act as a force multiplier it's easy to imagine a government mandating a checking account or a debit card for everybody and and whether that's good policy or not I'm not going to judge but if you did have that policy and you were able to leverage knowledge like this of the behaviors who might actually get people to use such instruments that obviously would be a phenomenal step forward for that for that government and for that economy so so with that end in end in view if you go to the website again insights.mastercard.com slash the connectors project you'll find that there are com boxes there's a there's an interactive feature there that allows people to share with us either their experience with connectors their desire to know more and as the we gather the information and as we curate the results that come in through those comments boxes we'll share it in a rolling way on the website and we hope to be able to share it with people on the ground in countries around the world we looked at four countries but we do think that these archetypes are globally applicable I'd also like to say just quickly before we go that we're going to be doing a a Twitter chat and we're going to be going to begin at two fifteen local time one fifteen local time two fifteen eastern time one fifteen local time two fifteen eastern time it's hashtag connectors project and the handle is Mastercard LAC so if you'd like to hear more about it then if you'd like to get maybe more answers be delighted to speak to you at that time so Peter thanks very much for the opportunity it's been a great discussion and let me also thank you Rosario Carlos and of course you did for being here today and thank you all for being present thank you very much very well