Michael Schlein, President and CEO of Accion, shares his exhortation for action
Looking back
Two years ago the Citi Foundation convened a group of us to start thinking about Financial Inclusion. We looked around the room and saw all the usual suspects. We immediately realized we needed to broaden the conversation to all the new actors who are coming in, seeing the opportunities, the markets and the need for financial services at the base of the pyramid.
From a Forum to a Movement
That led us on this path to FI2020 and this Forum. I do think we have succeeded in broadening the conversation significantly. It’s not just the non-profits and the microfinance institutions but it is now banks, payment companies, retailers, insurers, government organizations and regulators. It is a broad conversation aligning around a common vision of creating a financially inclusive world.
This is more than a Forum. It has now become a movement with a clear direction laid out in the Roadmaps. There is a lot of energy in this room and we will all leave here and continue to work on driving this vision forward.
Everyone has a role to play
This is an inflection point.
We at the Center for Financial Inclusion have been working hard to get to this Forum. We now have to take stock and think about the future and how to keep this momentum going.
My exhortation to everyone involved in this Forum – in person or online – is help us make this vision real. Everyone has a significant role to play in actually achieving a financially inclusive world.
Read Michael’s latest Huffington Post article, “Tapping an Invisible Market: We Can Make Financial Inclusion a Reality“
To see what others are saying and posting about the Global Forum, visit the Financial Inclusion 2020 website and follow #FI2020 on Twitter.
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November 21, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Hugh Sinclair
I wonder what Mr Schlein thought of the recent downgrade of Grupo ACP, the main shareholder alongside Accion in Peru’s leading microfinance bank MiBanco? Surely this is a step backwards for financial inclusion? Also, given the focus on client protection in the microfinance sector, inlcuding transparent pricing, I wonder if it is about time to define “affordable” credit? It seems hard to distinguish between exploitatively priced credit and affordable credit without a definition. Mr Schlein is presumably aware of the controversy surrounding the interest rates charged by Accion’s investment company Compartamos, reported by David Roodman to reach rates approaching 200% per year?
If we are to make financial inclusion a reality for all, surely we need to do so from a transparent platform, and take note when major rating agencies such as Fitch downgrade major players such as Grupo ACP?