 Good evening, your excellencies, distinguished guests, welcome and thank you for coming to reflect and to celebrate on financial inclusion for development building on 10 years of progress. This event is kindly co-hosted by the group of friends, the co-chairs of the group of friends which include the missions of the permanent missions of Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania at the UN. My name is Tilman Erbeck. I am the chair of Her Majesty Queen Maxima's reference group as the UN SGSA and in that capacity I've been asked to emcee this event and as we are waiting for the Secretary General I will give you a quick overview of what we are going to do. We will hear from the Secretary General and Her Majesty. We will then show a brief movie and then we will hear from a number of distinguished speakers as testimonials for her work. It's a great honor to be here and to emcee. It's very easy as well because none of the distinguished speakers actually needs any introduction so I welcome immediately the Secretary General, His Excellency Antonio Guicciaris. Thank you very much to give us your opening remarks. Thank you very much and I'm going to apologize because I will speak, listen a little bit of time and immediately have to go because today I have about 40 bilaterals and this is my sixth intervention so it's a little bit complicated and I will be extremely unpolite but I have no alternative. Your Majesties, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here today to focus on the role of financial inclusion in sustainable development. But I want to particularly thank Her Majesty, Queen Máxima, my special advocate for raising the profile of this issue around the world in a way that has been absolutely remarkable. I believe that these 10 years have indeed made an enormous difference. I believe that when you started we heard in the kind of proto-history of financial inclusion and today we are really in a very dynamic movement everywhere. So on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, I wanted to thank you very much and to say how proud I am that you have accepted to go on remaining as my special advocate. And I thank the group of friends for financial inclusion for their work and for co-hosting today's event. Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development depends on adequate financing based on the global partnership agreed in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. This relies in turn on taking full advantage of the FinTech revolution, new financial technologies, institutions and markets have great potential to extend financial inclusion and to facilitate investment. Since 2011, the proportion of people with access to formal financial services has risen from 50% to nearly 70%. Some 1.2 billion additional people now have access to savings accounts, credit, payment plans and insurance products. These services can help people and communities to build resilience and to make the most of opportunities. New financial technologies have also reduced operational costs, enabling governments to reach people with financial services more easily. They can facilitate investment and help small businesses to access credit. And they can help to fight the tax evasion, money laundering and illicit financial flows that can drain resources from the developing world. However, despite these enormous progress, some 1.7 billion adults still do not have an account with a financial institution or a mobile money provider. And more than half are women. Gender equality is a proven driver for ending poverty and building sustainable communities and economies. And so it's particularly negative that more than half of those that are deprived of these instruments are women. The strategy for financing the 2030 agenda that was launched last year sets out ways in which the United Nations can support a fundamental shift to align global economic policies and financial systems with the 2030 agenda. Seizing the potential of financial innovations, new technologies and digitalization to provide equitable access to finance is one of its three key objectives. Beyond the United Nations, I am pleased that the G20, the Gates Foundation and others are prioritizing financial inclusion and more than 50 countries have now developed their own national financial inclusion strategies. For lack of a legal identity is a major bar to financial inclusion for 1.1 billion people. Any solution must include efforts to tackle these. Excellencies, majesties, ladies and gentlemen, new technologies can create new risks, disrupt labor markets and contribute to growing inequality. Financial systems and regulatory frameworks must manage these risks without creating new obstacles to achieving the 2030 agenda. The task force on digital financing of the sustainable development goals is addressing these challenges. Its forthcoming report finds that digitalization is already helping to mobilize funds more quickly and direct them towards sustainable development. And I hope these initiatives will continue to complement and support each other to harness the fintech revolution for sustainable development and promote lives of peace, dignity and prosperity for all. And Your Majesty, I know that with your leadership, with your enthusiasm and with your mobilization capacity, this is going to move even more quickly in the next 10 years. I would like to introduce Her Majesty, Queen Magdalen of the Netherlands, the UN Secretary General Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to welcome you in this very busy time, certainly you, Secretary General, with all your bilaterals and all your interventions to make time for this very important issue, to celebrate the success of the last 10 years, but also to discuss the challenges that are lying ahead. In the last 10 years, I have seen the power of financial inclusion. In Nigeria, Nrakafor Agnes told me three years ago that after enrolling in a new digital health insurance scheme, not only she was able to get health for her whole family, but she could now save on a mobile health wallet. In Indonesia, I met Madhmas Ken, who ran a food stall, and after starting to work with Gojek online ordering app, not only he had access to more clients, but it allowed him instant payments through his phone, which reduced costs, increased efficiency, and gave him access to credit to grow. And in Bangladesh, I met Isu Hassan, who had a dream to commercialize her grandmother's hair oil recipe. With the help of Shopup, not only she got along quickly, but she also got back office and online administration help and access to markets. Today, Isu has a booming business, employs a lot of people, and bought a house for her parents. And there are millions of success stories like these. We have made great progress, from less than 50% to 70% of the world's adult population being financial inclusion during at least the last eight years. But why is financial inclusion so important? Financial inclusion is not an NNN itself, but it is a means to increase family income, improve nutrition, increase access to health, improve education, empower especially women, allows affordable clean energy, as well as water sanitation, and it creates jobs. Basically, it is about including people in the economy, and it is giving them a tool to have a better future. Now, all these successes needed a lot of collaboration these last years. First of all, from governments and their leaders, they are essential to change policies and regulations and investments to allow this. Second, our group of friends, which you just mentioned, I'm a reference group of advisors who have pushed, supported, made research, and followed up in all the country visits that we've actually done, and have been so action-oriented. I would like to say thanks to the World Bank here, and to the Gates Foundation, and that you're here today. Also, the private sector leaders who have realized that this is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. They are the ones that are going to be providing scale. So happy that Dan and Ajay are here with us today. And then we have the global standard setting bodies who realized that financial stability and integrity alone makes no sense if it is only enjoyed by 20% of the population. And all of you here, it has been an honor to collaborate with so many of you present here. Lastly, I want to thank my office for your great work, the support of my friends, my husband, and my whole country. Having said all of this, and thank you all, the reality is the work is not yet finished. We still have, like you just said, 1.7 billion people to go. And technology presents today our best chance to reach these people by scaling quickly, reach them affordably, and reach them with better products. Better products that both in developing and developed nations can help us decrease inequality, increase growth, improve financial health for segments of the population, help us tackle issues such as climate change and adaptation, and increase transparency across the board. The challenges are that these new technologies present new risks like cyber attacks, data privacy, dominating super platforms, hindering competition, and exclusion that could be created by algorithms. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, to be able to do all of this, we have to remain committed to allow these innovations to happen while at the same time addressing these new risks. Dialogue between regulators and innovators, and creating public goods to address these new risks is essential. Financial literacy and consumer protection will be key to protect the less empowered from fraud and over-indepthness in the new digital credit world. We also need to continue to seek better solutions for the hard-to-reach segment group, to the hard-to-reach groups, like you just mentioned, the women, the micro, smaller media-sized companies, and the rural. Lastly, we need to think beyond access and more of financial health. We need services of good quality that meet people financial needs, protect them against shocks, and help them plan for a brighter future. I thank you, Secretary General, for your trust, for your support. It has been a wonderful journey so far. Thank you. Thank you again, Your Excellency. Thank you, Your Majesty, Queen Maxima. We will now show a movie, a quick film, to transition to the afternoon, to the rest of the afternoon. It was created by Blue Blood, a Dutch TV program. They have followed Her Majesty on country visits. It's our attempt to bring the importance for the end beneficiaries of our work as close into this room as possible. So if we could show the movie, please, and we know that you have to leave in the meantime. For the wealth decade, the wealth is what is going to be recognized in financial inclusion. For the wealth today, compared to just 51% in 2011. As the UN Secretary General's special advocate, I have been working for more than a decade on what we call financial inclusion. That is giving everyone, everywhere the financial services they need to protect themselves against hardship, to invest in the future, and to really finally be able to be part of economic progress. Financial inclusion, especially through digital technology, is transforming people's lives and contributing to development. On country visits, the special advocate and her partners have seen firsthand how mobile money, digital finance and fintech provide exciting and promising innovations to help meet customers' needs. In Indonesia, a tech company called Gojek introduced a ride-hailing app that now provides access to a broad range of products and services. The company also has a digital wallet called GoPay that enables people to make easy payments without using cash or having a bank account. And Gojek offers easier access to bank credit for their drivers and merchants. The drivers, they told us like how the life is very improved from before they joined Gojek. And some people cannot have access for a loan house. And through us, they can have that kind of access. Gojek is only one example of how technology can make people's economic and financial lives easier. For micro, small and medium enterprises around the world, financial services offer new opportunities to grow. Jona Islam, an entrepreneur in Bangladesh, set up a tailoring business in 1998 with a small loan from BRAC. After successfully repaying it, she took out two bigger loans to purchase more equipment and hire additional staff. So from $5,000 to $400,000. Steadily building a strong credit record and putting her profits back into her growing enterprise, Mrs. Lam is now a successful small business owner. Next, she hopes to explore digital salary payments for her employees and e-commerce. Understanding customer needs is key to creating the right policies and services. After meeting with and listening to users of financial services, the special advocate takes what she learns to help craft her input to policymakers and private sector leaders. Looking ahead, there is great hope for digital financial services to further ignite financial inclusion. They can also help to achieve the sustainable development goals, such as poverty reduction and gender equality. However, many people still lack formal financial services. There's a need to pay special attention to women, farmers and the poor to ensure financial inclusion leads to development progress for all. Collaboration across governments, development agencies and the private sector is crucial to help identify customer-centric policies and products that fit the needs of those who are still excluded. The right financial tools are essential for them to build their own future. Microphone not on yet? I was saying these trips are grueling, I can tell you from first-hand experience. We are now going to hear testimonials from distinguished guests and speakers whose institutions and often who in a personal capacity have been very close collaborators to Her Majesty, Queen Maxima. And I'm going to invite, we have six testimonials, so they will by nature have to be relatively brief and they will touch on different aspects. And I invite first the President of the World Bank, Mr. David Malpas. And I think we want you to speak from there. Thank you very much. Queen Maxima, it's such a pleasure to be here to celebrate the work that you've done, the progress that you've made 10 years of endeavors that have really had a big impact on people's lives. It's been an invaluable support from a development standpoint by focusing attention on financial inclusion. In Bangladesh, for example, your work coupled with development partners increased access to mobile money from 3% of the population to 20%. And it also led to digitalization of wage payments and other large-volume systems, including for the mostly female population of the garment workers industry. I'm relatively new in my job, but I've seen the effects of it over and over again. I met with the Presidents both of Kenya and of Ghana today. And both were talking about the, I get today and yesterday. And both were talking about the impact that mobile banking has had on their people. There are spikes in the number of transactions early in the morning as workers, often women workers, are beginning to take money and buy goods and then sell them during the day. And that's causing a measurable impact on their lives because they can begin to transact and have money of their own. You've been an early supporter of better data on financial inclusion, which is so important for making progress with programs because we can see how they work. You are a leading champion of the global FINDEX database, which enabled us to document advances in financial inclusion. And across Africa, we work together to help the authorities enact reforms that will open the way for greater competition. The World Bank has been, we have the Women's Business and the Law Index, which has been so important in documenting and helping document the progress. My notes have many more achievements in bilateral remittance quarters, which are so important for many of the world's poor. The systems have enabled much greater volumes. And you've been an enthusiastic advocate in the global partnership for financial inclusion of the G20, where you're an honorary patron. So we, the World Bank, greatly look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the UNS GSA. And in particular, we can look forward to great work and improvements in financial literacy, especially for women, which is going to be so important in the next phase of reforms. And we think a lot of progress can be made on lowering transaction cost, which then brings into the radar screen, brings into range many more activities that women and men can do in their countries to improve their financial circumstances. So we need action on the ground. The World Bank is very much looking forward to working with your majesty and with all the other partners. And I thank you very much for your efforts in this regard. And we look forward to continued collaboration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, David. As our next distinguished speaker, I would like to welcome his excellency, Mr. Rudi Antara, the Minister of Communication and IT from the Republic of Indonesia, one of the co-chairs of the group of friends, Minister. Our Majesty, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, distinguished speakers, my friends here. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, digital economy is something foreseeable in Indonesia. Our country with 260 million people is a firm believer on the digital economy. Next year, our digital economy will reach 130 billion US dollars or represents slightly over 11% of our real GDP. Why? We believe on the digital economy. Number one, this is number one. This digital economy creates workforce digitization. As we see here, this standing banner, Gojack, on the movie Gojack, they create a million, a new worker, which is digital workforce. Gojack type of application is no longer the right-hailing in the country. They are now becoming the super apps. It's a lifestyle. It's not only right-hailing. We can order food from Gojack, which is what we call food. And this creates the new micro small-molume enterprises. For the one who would like to have a restaurant, they are good in cooking something. They have to lease the space, but with these applications. So for the one who are good in cooking something, as long as they have a good brand, they can deliver it directly to their kitchen, delivered by Gojack. The e-commerce platform in Indonesia, one of them, they have seven million merchants. And out seven million merchants, 70%, are the one who never been in the business before. So this really creates the micro small-molume enterprises with these digitations. Reason number two, shared economy. Always shared economy, shared economy, shared economy. In this Gojack pieces model, who own the asset, who own the motorcycle, who own the bicycle? It's not the company. It's not the Gojack, it's not the apps. But the people owned the bike, motorbike. Who own the kitchen? It's not Gojack, it's not in their balance sheet. But people, this is what they call a shared economy. And more important things is number three, which is financial inclusions. Gojack, they have go pay. Only within the years, they have processed six billion US dollars transaction. So that's why we are a firm believer on digital economy. In particular, on the financial inclusions. Thank you. Excellency, Queen Maxima. And Indonesia has also developed the national strategy for financial inclusion to boost economic growth through equal income distribution, poverty reduction, and financial stability, which is consists of five pillars. Number one, financial education. Number two, property right. The government has issued more than 20 million certificate of the land. So the land owner, they can use the certificate for the guarantee to get the loan from the banks right now. This is only for the last three years. Third, intermedician and financial distributions. We promote more branchless banks in the country, use the technology, find the new ways, find the new business process, maximizing the use of technology. Third, government financial services. Fifth, consumer protections. And those five pillars supported by three fundamental strategy. Number one is policy and regulations. Second, effective organizations and mechanism. And last but not least is the ICT infrastructure. Indonesia consists of 17,000 islands. Some ask me, Rudy, are you sure? Yes, I'm sure. Whether depends on whether it's high tide or low tide. But anyway, this is how to share with you how big is our country. It's not the land, it's not pretty much land countries, which is easier to build the ICT infrastructure. Thanks, we have concluded, we have completed with the project we call it Palaparing that we built the backbone for broadband that connect the whole region throughout the country, which is 540 countries. So there is no reason that we are not be able to speed up to boost the financial including in the country. I would like also to extend my sincere thank you to Excellency Queen Maxima that always keep her eye to Indonesia. By this, I would like to conclude my remarks, my statements. And thank you very much to all of you. Thank you, Minister, for bringing to life what financial inclusion means on the ground and explain your government's plans. I would like to invite now, as the next speaker, His Excellency Professor Kaboudi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tanzania, also a co-chair of the group of friends for financial inclusion at the UN. Your Excellency. Your Majesties, functioning now. Okay. Your Majesties, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. The United Republic of Tanzania is a co-chair of the group of friends on financial inclusion and co-host of this event today. It's an honor for me to speak on behalf of the government and the people of Tanzania on the important topic of financial inclusion. The United Republic of Tanzania is quite impressed with this meeting and the testimonials before me, which have been alluded by also a friend from Indonesia and from the World Bank. Let me add some few experience of Tanzania which I can add to this very important venture. One, the United Republic of Tanzania, really congratulates and thanks enormously for Majestie Queen Maxima. In her capacity as the Secretary General's Special Advocate, he visited the United Republic of Tanzania in December 2013 and launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. During her meetings with government officials and also with the private sector, she emphasized the importance of focusing on the need of farmers, small hold of farmers. Since then, the United Republic of Tanzania has implemented the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. And we have developed the second Financial Inclusion Strategy. And hopefully, your Majestie, when it pleases you and his Majestie the King, we hope to see you in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania soon to see the second Financial Inclusion Strategy being put in, being rolled out. We are in the process of implementation of our new strategy with the focus on farmers as you've answered us. Women, girls, micro, small and medium enterprises as you advocated your Majestie. Our government's main priorities include reducing poverty, creating jobs and achieving gender equality. This year, we have resumed the chairmanship of the South African Development Community. And the theme that Tanzania has proposed to Sarek is creating an inclusive, sustainable industrial development, increased intra-tread, but more job creation for our young men and our young women. And we believe your Majestie, this issue of Financial Inclusion is relevant today, is relevant tomorrow, and is relevant the day after tomorrow. Because we believe Financial Inclusion is key to achieve many of these. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we admire and so admire the work of the UN Special Advocate on Financial Inclusion and our contribution to the development of this important theme in the United Republic of Tanzania. We are lucky to have you as one of those people who has the United Republic of Tanzania in your heart and in your husband's heart. I would like to thank those who are making a valuable contribution today, and especially to you, Quinn Maxima, for your dedication, devotion, in the ensuring Financial Inclusion is part of our agenda. Dankvel. Thank you very much. Thank you, Minister Kaboudi. It's my great honor to invite our next guest, the co-chair of the Melinda Gates Foundation, Mrs. Melinda Gates. Thank you so much. I think all of us are in this room and here this week at the United Nations because we have one dream, and that's the dream to have an equitable world. And if we're gonna have an equitable world, you have to include everybody. And that means you have to talk about some topics that maybe we don't always talk about, and one of those is money. And if you will indulge me for just a second in my own story, I will get to the point of why I'm here. I grew up in the south of the United States where talking about money was considered crass. We didn't do that publicly. We use euthanisms like financial services or economies. But I also grew up in a household where my father and my mother believed in empowering both the two girls in the family, which was my sister and me, and the two boys in our family. My dad made sure very early on, my sister and I were the oldest, that we got bank accounts and we learned how to use them and that we got savings accounts. But it was my mom who took my sister and me and eventually my brothers every three weeks to the bank to put our little bit of savings into the bank. The little we'd save from our allowances or the odd jobs we could get in the neighborhood or eventually real jobs that we had where we were getting money over the summers. So my mother taught me what it meant to go to the bank and to keep your checking account and to save money. My parents made sure with my first job that the very first paycheck I got went into my savings account. Why do I bring this up? Because when I went to college, I studied computer science and economics. Then I went straight to business school and the most powerful classes I was in were the finance classes. And everywhere I went, the men talked about money. We talked about money, money, money. And if we're gonna create an equitable world, I've come to see that we have to include everybody. And that means we need to include women and we need to include marginalized people and we need to include the poor. And money is power. And if we want to empower people, we have to make sure that they have means for savings. And that's where Queen Maxima comes into my story. She's been working on development longer than I have. When I started to learn about these issues, certainly inside and outside the foundation about financial inclusion, I went to my first meeting with Queen Maxima and I didn't know what to expect, quite honestly. And I got schooled in why financial services were important. And these days, when I am lucky enough to go call on a president or prime minister of a country to talk about digital financial services and the importance of having women and poor, the poor, save into their own bank accounts, they'll say to me, oh, oh, oh, I'm totally on board. And guess what, Queen Maxima's already been here to talk to me about that issue. And I'm like, great, we are in good stead here. She has tirelessly traveled the globe. She could have stayed home. It would have been easier. She wouldn't have put so many miles on her suitcases or on that airline flight. But she talks to government bodies, decision-making bodies, regulators. She talks to businesses. She talks to the non-governmental sector about why making sure we have financial services that include everybody are important. One of the things that I think when we talk about digital financial services, when I look back a decade ago, we didn't have that tool. We didn't have a phone to talk about, could you go in and make sure that a woman or a man could save a dollar a day, $2 a day. We know that in many places in the world, the poor and even in my own country aren't welcomed at the bank. And yet they save. They save. They'll show you by putting it under the mattress or in a tin can or in a piece in a livestock or a piece of jewelry so that when the school fees are due, they can sell that asset or collect that asset and pay for the school fees or the health shock. So we have this tool that if we get it right, if we make sure that people have digital IDs, if we make sure that we get the regulations right and the policies right, if we have the right regulatory systems, if we know that governments act in the right way and can create a competitive environment for digital financial services, we will bring down the price so it only costs a few cents to save or borrow money. And that will make a huge difference in the lives of the poor. And so what I'm here to say is that if we wanna create an equitable and just society, we need to empower everyone and bring them into the digital financial services. And my thanks to Queen Maxima for tirelessly championing this issue and making sure that it's about everyone, not just a few. Thank you. Thank you very much, Melinda, as Queen Maxima said earlier, the cooperation with the private sector is very important to her work. And our last two speakers are two champions, private sector champions of financial inclusion globally and financial health in the US actually. And I would like to ask Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal to come first. Thank you, Dan. Your Majesty, other distinguished guests. Thank you for all coming together. Thank you for having me. And it's an honor to be a small part of this large and important initiative. I'd like to start on a personal note. Her Majesty has become a close friend over the past several years and she cares deeply and passionately about a topic we've discussed so many times, not just financial inclusion, but financial health. And it's a difficult job. She has seen many victories along the way in many setbacks, professional and personal, and she tirelessly advocates and is passionate about this project. And as much as I talk about it in all my speeches, she inspires me all the time. And I'm honored and I'm proud to have you as somebody who works side by side with all of us and is my friend. So thank you for that. I think we should all be rightfully proud of all the accomplishments that we've made in the last 10 years. You can look at almost any metric and it's improved dramatically. But I don't think we should underestimate how far we still have to go. Really the work has just begun. There are 1.7 billion people still outside the bounds of the financial system. And my bet is you can double that number when you look at the underserved market as well, who are by definition financially included, but the reality is they're not well served by the financial system. Here in the US, there are 70 million adults that are underserved. And interestingly, in a country like the US of 70 million adults spent $140 billion last year on fees and very high interest rates. And they're just to do basic financial transactions that most of us would take for granted, like cashing a check or paying a bill. And that's ridiculous given the technologies that we have right now. I mean, imagine if we could save one third of that. And by the way, we should be aiming at saving half of that, maybe even more of that with the digital technologies we have. But imagine we could save $40 billion from that $120 billion and return it to those who most need it and drive their financial health. And why is that possible? As Melinda mentioned, you've got the mobile phone. And with the mobile phone right now, you have all the power of a bank branch in the palm of your hands. And we should be able to conduct those basic financial transactions at a fraction of the cost of a traditional brick and mortar bank branch at a fraction of the cost, probably 80% less. And of course, this all needs to be done in a responsible manner. It has to be done in a way that respects the regulatory environment of countries around the world, that respects the privacy and data security of consumers and individuals around the world. And I think it's essential when Queen Maxima pushes this all the time, I completely agree with her, that no one organization, no one company, no one NGO can do this alone. We have to have a public and private partnership along with NGOs to make this happen. And that is very difficult to go do, but we need to make it happen. I think what's both frustrating and inspirational at the same time is that this is a problem that can and should be solved. We have the power to go and do that, but it's gonna be very difficult, but it's obviously within our reach to go do that. And I know that's what drives Her Majesty year after year after year. It's what drives all of us. And what I would like to end my remarks, Your Majesty, is saying that I personally commit to you and to the mission that you're leading. I personally commit PayPal to that mission, because I don't think anything is more important than us being part of this community and doing all of our best to make a real difference in the lives of our fellow citizens that need it most. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for reminding us how much more work there is to be done, but also that it is actually quite feasible. As our last speaker for this part, I would like to ask Ajay Banga to come up, CEO of MasterCard. So thank you all very much. And you know, I'm convinced that when we first met, this was meant to be a cosmic joke because I still don't know what a lady in a tiara will have in common with a guy in a turban. But eventually I found it. And what came out to be common was our interest in trying to do something about this problem that you just spoke so well about, Melinda, and Dan has always, I've heard him talk about this so many times, he talks about it with the passion of a believer. And I think that's what came in common. And now when I look back, this is a few years back, I've also learned the meaning of the word bully pulpit, because she uses this bully pulpit and she bullies me a fair amount along the way. And I think that has, so it's led to new meaning to the logic of bully pulpit and I'm sure your husband is very aware of the utilization of those two words together. Now how this, why do I say that? Because yes, it's a big problem, but if you don't break it down into small bite-sized chunks, you will get overwhelmed by the nature of what we're trying to deal with. And the first thing that I got going with her was she made me commit on a World Bank IMF panel in front of a bunch of people as to what I would put up as a big goal. And I made this commitment of 500 million people that Mastercard would reach by the year 2020. I got off the panel and this young lady sitting here behind here came up to me and said, which part of your brain were you thinking with when you made that commitment? I said, actually I was thinking with Queen Maxima's brain because she wanted me to make this commitment. Turns out between then and today, we've reached there. We've actually reached there as a company with our partners. So for once I have a chance to have the bully pulpit, right? So I'm using it. So we've reached there. The problem is what we've reached is inclusion. We haven't yet completely got to the stage, even for those 500 billion people, the opportunity for them to understand the meaning of the value of that inclusion in the form of better savings, better credit, better insurance, a better life. That we haven't yet done completely. Because just getting governments to agree to set up the right regulatory framework to deposit benefits into their accounts is not enough. They've got to feel the power of being part of being included in the financial system of the world because otherwise it will not be sustained. So that to me is our biggest task. And what you have taught us all is that sustainable growth in this space will require the private sector's capital ingenuity and technology in addition to the government setting the right guide rails, rules and methods and regulations, as you said, Melinda, very clearly, but also getting the NGO community and the private sector to trust each other adequately to make all these troubles look simple to solve. And I think that's why you're taking us and I think that's a huge new opportunity. I know that over the last few years, she's got me to think about how to get access to small merchants to credit. We don't lend any money, banks do, but we can help digitize the supply chain and create the transaction record that using AI allows you to allow a bank to make a much better decision on how much money to give the woman with a small shop in front of her house, which she couldn't get earlier. We're doing that now in a number of countries in partnership with originally Unilever, coincidentally a company that also gets influenced by the bully pulpit. And so that is her doing. I think she brought Paul Polman at that time and me together in Davos to actually get that deal going. And now we're expanding that to India with them. And just yesterday with Rabobank, we have announced thanks to you again, that we will reach a million farmers in Africa and Asia with digital tools on their phone to enable them to access markets for their produce and get access to fertilizer and seeds in a way that they would not otherwise do. And so I think whichever way you look at it, the chance to go from just inclusion to financial security is where you're taking us. So I'd say, yes, it is a strange partnership to start with, but I'm very lucky and I'm blessed. And so are all the people who work in our company and have seen you and I've had a chance to be there. And all I can say is to you, Your Majesty, thank you for sharing her with us. She is quite a treasure. Thank you very much. Thank you so much again, President Malpas, Mrs. Gates, Honorable Minister RJ Dan, Honorable Minister, thank you so much. It was incredibly powerful and inspiring. It was important to Her Majesty that we get some question and answers into this session. So we have about 15 minutes. We got a lot of questions. So what we had to do is pre-select a few from a diverse group of people. So we will call, I will call on people, but I ask you first, Your Majesty, would you like to do it from here? Would you just, you take these, okay. So our first question, I would like to call on His Highness, the Amir of Karno, whom I have not seen yet. Oh, many of us also know you as the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Your Highness. Thank you very much, Your Majesty. Let me join colleagues in congratulating you on this 10th anniversary as a special advocate. I know we go back along. We remember when you were first appointed 2009. That was the year I became governor of Central Bank. And I think I was your first meeting at the World Bank and you were my first meeting. So it's, and I've been following your progress over the last 10 years and I congratulate you on what you've achieved. My question is linked to a disagreement we had when I was governor of Central Bank. After you launched our financial inclusion program and our strategy, and we started mobile banking. And we had a number of robust discussions where you've been more technologically savvy than I and trusting technology more than I did, wanted us to go fast with the telcos and I wanted a bank-led model. I'm ashamed to admit that you were right and I was wrong. And two years later, I had a chance to acknowledge to you when you came back to Nigeria that I was wrong and you were right and I'm happy the Central Bank is correcting my mistake. But at the heart of my concern, coming from risk management background and after financial crisis, was that we all agree that technology comes with threats and opportunities. And my concern was how to protect customers as we move into a highly modern technological environment. So can you expand on in what way your work would help protect customers as we drive technology and financial inclusion? Your Highness, first of all, thank you very much for coming. You've been a great proponent of financial inclusion even though from a bank-led model initially. But you're very right. I think like I just said in my speech, technology is really our best chance to really make financial inclusion happen. So we'll have to embrace it but embrace it with also not only the opportunities but also with the risks. And the way we've been trying to actually address this issue is first of all, get together the innovators with the regulators. Because by having the dialogue between both you can actually have a better understanding what are the real risks that are actually being underlined in this new FinTech type of financial service providers. It is about sometimes capital risks. It is sometimes about operational risks but they have to be understood. And we don't speak with each other, probably that's not really going to happen. So that was my first thing that I tried to do was actually try to get regulators and innovators to discuss together. The other issue is for regulators to learn among each other. We're gonna be going to Singapore in November to the FinTech Festival and a lot of regulators are gonna get together there. I'm gonna be discussing with each other how did you solve this issue? How did you try to address this other issue? I think that learning from each other is extremely powerful. We also produced a report for a lot of emerging markets for them to cut corners in the learning curve of actually how to deal with these new entrants to the market, which have actually been very, very valuable to a lot of people. The other issue which I think is extremely important, I always like to call it public goods and we're always discussing about what the name should be like, which sometimes go beyond financial inclusion and these are very important issues. Data privacy has been mentioned. It's not something that is only for financial services. I mean, data privacy is a very big issue but it's something that needs to be addressed. Cyber security goes beyond financial inclusion but is essential for financial inclusion to happen in a sustainable way. IDs, identification, very, very important to have something that is also public-based and in which you can actually have the KYC done. Connectivity, we talk about women financial inclusion. Well, we have to also talk about the digital inclusion for a lot of, certainly the poorest, certainly the women, certainly the farmers. Interoperability, without interoperability we're not gonna have an open system that is efficient and that is really solid enough to actually take these amount of payment transactions that are actually happening in many of these economies. The financial and digital literacy fair competition we just talked, maybe just one winner takes it all and takes the whole market and that is also never good for consumers and physical infrastructure such as agent networks for people to cash in cash out with their own risks in itself but those are manageable. So I think we've actually had a long learning curve. We have fantastic examples of many countries have been doing this in a very good way and I think we have to keep on learning each other because innovation hasn't stopped. We're gonna keep on having new innovations and we'll have to keep on updating each other and analyzing what needs to be done but I really welcome the amount of engagement that I see from all the regulatory perspective and the Basel committee which actually have been now dwelling into this new subject and actually providing guidance to a lot of regulators around the world. Thank you, Johannes. For the next question I would like to call on Mary Ellen Eskanderian who is here. Mary Ellen, your question. Thank you, Tillman. Your Majesty, congratulations and thank you so much for all of your work. You and Melinda both spoke so eloquently about women's financial inclusion and you've always been such a great champion of making sure that women have as you say, both digital and financial inclusion. I wonder though, are there any other segments that you think we should be turning our attention to and require that urgent need in addition to women in terms of financial inclusion? Yes, first of all, even though there are farmers and micro and small and medium sized enterprises need a lot of attention, I still would like to insist on the women because when I started doing this work I thought it's gonna go by itself when you change the regulations, everybody's gonna be taking it up and it didn't happen. The amount of women that actually had access and usage of financial services did grow but we have a consistent gap between men and women and there's a misconception that financial services are gender neutral that women and men demand the same type of financial services and that is not really so. So I think we need to do an interior effort to really do a lot more work to see what are the needs of women and what are the, in different cultures because definitely that changes from the US to the Philippines to the African continent so I wouldn't like to generalize but we still have this 9% gender gap and if we're now looking into the future we're gonna be depending on technology. And on an average today, women are 10% less likely to have a mobile phone. They're 26% less likely to use internet. So if we're gonna be depending on this digitization, digital inclusion will be an extremely important issue that we need to look into for them to be really fully financially included. So we need to advocate to change some of these barriers. Sometimes our culture norms, sometimes the husband doesn't let their wives to get out of the house. My husband does, thank God. Sometimes it's just a constrain because she's a caretaker of the whole house and she can't move very freely. Sometimes they have less IDs, 30% of women have less IDs than men. So there's just so many different issues that we need to really address per jurisdiction, per country and really try to speak with every country and try to change that. So it's digital inclusion, financial inclusion. And for all of that, one thing that is amazing is when I started doing this work, not only there was not a lot of data and we got that data in, but there's not a lot of gender-disaggregated data. So even in my country, the Netherlands, where we're talking about with the banking industry and how many loans they give to SMEs, mostly the CEOs didn't really know. When they realized it was around 30% sometimes less, they were shocked and now they're really doing something about it. So data gives people knowledge and they make these issues actionable. And I think we need to invest a lot more in data both on the public side, but also on the private sector side. Mostly the telecom companies do not know how many of the clients are women, only one fifth of them. And that is shocking because we're gonna be depending on actually giving the good services to them. How do you actually define a good service for women if you don't know that your client there is a woman or not? So again, a huge work to be undertaken, but with a huge potential. We know what it's like to invest in women. That means you invest in the whole family and the whole community. And we know what it'd be like to GDP growth. It would actually have at par the labor participation of women to men. Thank you. Good. For the next question, I would like to call on Alain Joop, the CEO of Unilever. Well, thank you very much. And thank you very much, Your Majesty, for your leadership and congratulations on everything that you've achieved. You crack the whip on your CEO group every year at Davos. And Adjaye, we've been working together thanks to being beaten up in Davos. And I thought we might as well try and get ahead of the curve and ask what more do you think the private sector can do, particularly at the bottom of the pyramid? And are there any limitations, things you think the private sector should stay away from so we can get working on our homework before we see you again on this subject? Thank you very much. I think my a-bridge is getting a little bit worse and worse by everybody that is speaking. Let me say first of all, the private sector is essential. I mean, the government are the ones responsible for the public goods, for the rules and regulations, but the private sector is the ones going to provide scale. And I'm really happy about these innovative partnerships that we've been seeing that Adjaye has been doing with you, but you're not the only ones in a CEO partnership. We've actually seen a flourishment of these partnerships of actually a company that needs potatoes to buy potatoes, but they cannot source it locally. And by getting it together with a telecom operator that would actually do the payments and with a bank and insurance companies, all of a sudden these women farmers have access to markets because they will buy the potatoes. They will actually have access to payments immediately, access to inputs, and also access to credit. And on top of that, health insurance, through this insurance company. None of these companies would have been able to go so far into these rural areas. So my issue and I keep on insisting in the CEO partnership is I know that I have the whip or I don't know how to call it. I don't want to repeat what you said. But I think that one thing is to have all the CEOs, the global CEOs sitting around the table, but we have to get the local CEOs really convinced on this issue and lawyers convinced on this issue because it's innovation is going really beyond what you normally do. If we really are serious about this issue, we need to innovate and we have to have courage to go beyond business as usual. And that is hard, it's hard to explain to your shareholders, it's hard to explain to your local CEOs, and it's hard to explain sometimes through the regulators that are like, well, you're supposed to be a bank not to be doing all these other things. So I really hope that we can keep on working together. There's a lot of markets that we have to still service. So I'm really counting on you. So thank you very much for your collaboration. We want to bring this to a KLM precision landing. On time, be respectful of your time. So we only have time for one more question from Mayada Elzogbi at CFI and it is on the SDGs which also allows you to bring this back together at the UN Your Majesty for any last concluding remarks you want to make. Mayada. Thank you so much, Tillman. Your Majesty, congratulations on an amazing 10 years and thank you for including us in your celebration and thank you for picking my question. So my question to you is about the SDGs and as you know, the financial inclusion is not a standalone SDG, but we've been saying that it's an important enabler of the other SDGs and it has potential to have big impact on the SDGs. So I want to talk about the measurement of financial inclusion progress. How is that done within the SDGs and how does it contribute to achieving the SDGs by 2030? Given that we have 11 more years to go. Thank you so much. Of course in relation, I mean my title is Financial Inclusion for Development. So it seems self-explanatory but sometimes we really have to make the point where do we really touch and help the outcomes of the sustainable development goals? Like I've always said, financial inclusion is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end. And one of the things we've actually achieved is actually make the relationship to a lot of these very big outcomes. So yes, we are within seven SDGs. For example, reduction of poverty, food security, women economic empowerment, et cetera. And we are under eight targets. So we make out all the indicators and feed into the results we have to present in a couple of years as accomplishment of the sustainable development goals. So how do we measure this? And it goes back to what I was just saying. We need to have indicators. We need to measure progress. Not only to sort of show that we've actually made progress because we need to also see what are the things that we really need to change? Like they said today, it's not only about people having access, it's also people changing their life because they actually had access to the financial service that actually improved their cash flow and the financial situation in general. I'm extremely happy and I have to be very thankful to the World Bank and the Gates Foundation that some years ago we started this survey book, which is actually called Findex. And then we have 140 countries and measurements are done every three years. And you can see, first of all, you can make a comparable between countries. And you can see very clearly where the advances are going, where the programs, where the stalling is actually happening and where do we really have to focus more and more attention. The IMF, the IMF has done a fantastic job with the financial access survey and which actually even includes now gender data. So we are central banks around the world. You know, how many accounts are there? Do you see the growth and how many women owned accounts? And I have to say that even Christine Lagarde was personally involved with me to push central bankers to give that gender-disaggregated data. And when they got this gender-disaggregated data, a lot of them was like, oh my God, I didn't realize that actually we were not serving women properly. We also had the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and the Remittance Surveys. And all this data is basically feeding into this eight, into the seven goals and we're gonna be presenting that. So I have to say that one big analysis the World Bank did some years ago that really convinced me to get into this issue is there was a longitudinal empirical study that actually said financial inclusion is not only pro-growth but is also pro-poor, therefore reducing inequality. And we see, I mean, tons of evidence. In Nepal, we have examples that women-headed households have increased their spending on education once they had access to savings accounts. In Tanzania, thanks to digitalization of payments, people have been seeing a reduction in water collection from three hours into 10 minutes. This is women lining up to get water. And globally, pay as you go companies provided 10 million people with affordable modern energy thanks to digital financial options. So I think we need to do more to actually even have more effect and maybe a lot more sustainable development goals. And like I said, you know, you have to measure it. You have to follow it up and that will give us more inspiration to work on the future. Thank you so much. With that, with that and a big thank you to all the distinguished speakers and for all of you for coming, we are concluding the proceedings. Thank you very much again, your measures. Thank you very much for coming.