ITU sets agenda for digital financial roadmap

ITRealms:

As from tomorrow, the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Focus Group on Digital Financial Services (FG-DFS) meets in Washington DC, to set agenda for digital financial services roadmap, reports ITRealms.

The three-day meeting slated to last between Wednesday 27 and Friday 29 April, 2016, ITRealms gathered would discuss key elements of a global roadmap it is developing to help telecom and financial services regulators and operators around the world use digital and mobile technologies to address the issues around financial exclusion.

In addition, ITRealms gathered that after months of research and investigation, each of the four Working Parties will unveil their initial findings and recommendations for the Focus Group to discuss, review and approve.

ITRealms recollects that ITU is the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technologies, driving innovation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) together with 193 Member States and a membership of over 700 private sector entities and academic institutions.

Established over 150 years ago in 1865, ITU pride itself as the intergovernmental body responsible for coordinating the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promoting international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, improving communication infrastructure in the developing world, and establishing the worldwide standards that foster seamless interconnection of a vast range of communications systems.

Some of the burning issues on the table for ITU, ITRealms gathered includes broadband networks to cutting-edge wireless technologies, aeronautical and maritime navigation, radio astronomy, oceanographic and satellite-based earth monitoring as well as converging fixed-mobile phone, Internet and broadcasting technologies.

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ITU gears up for 2bn people financial inclusion

ITRealms:

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group on Digital Financial Services hosts telco and financial services regulators from across the globe in Kuala Lumpur reports ITRealms.

Almost a year after its launch, the ITU Focus Group on Digital Financial Services (DFS) for Financial Inclusion is preparing to host its global meeting to discuss how the international telecommunications and financial services communities can work together to tackle one of the world’s most challenging social and economic issues: access to formal financial services by the world’s poorest two billion people.

The Focus Group, incorporating 60 organizations from some 30 countries, aims to bridge the gap between telecommunications and financial services regulators, and the private and public sectors. Representatives from across the DFS ecosystem will pragmatically address some of the major issues currently preventing DFS from serving the unbanked.

Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU, Sanjay Acharya, said, four working-groups have been established, led by a balanced composition of regulatory authorities, operators and consumer protection organizations. 

Sanjay also said, they are developing a set of operational recommendations, tools and solutions that will fast track policy reform to support numerous developing countries in implementing the financial inclusion strategy and promoting DFS at scale. Initial findings will be discussed in Kuala Lumpur from 30 September to 2 October and at the next meeting in Geneva in December. While final reports are expected to be published late in 2016.

Chairman, Focus Group and Senior Programme Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sacha Polverini, said that by leveraging the rapid growth of existing mobile networks and the use of cell phones, the majority of cash transactions could be shifted into digital form.

“Innovative digital payment systems can reduce transaction costs up to 90 per cent, giving financial institutions, mobile network operators and a new set of service providers the ability to create innovative new financial products tailored to the needs of the poor,” he said.

Regulation is a key factor. However, the payment industry has found it challenging to launch and scale services for the unbanked – an issue that affects up to 2 billion people globally, the majority of which are based in India, China and Indonesia. This is because many policy and regulatory environments are not genuinely enabling the organic development of a competitive DFS ecosystem that can reach the poor. In addition, the conversation around DFS has primarily taken place at a national level and between financial service regulators and standard setting bodies.

“Given the important role that mobile can play in addressing DFS, ITU is in a unique position to bring together both telco and financial service regulators and industry from around the world to develop a common international framework that generates better understanding and provides practical solutions” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.

After Kuala Lumpur the Focus Group will hold its next meeting in Geneva from 15 to 17 December 2015 when in-depth discussions are expected to take place. The meeting in Geneva will be preceded by a one-day workshop on Digital Financial Services and Financial Inclusion.
 

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