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> Posted by Sonja E. Kelly, Fellow, CFI
Financial Inclusion 2020 (FI2020) is a global multi-stakeholder movement to achieve full financial inclusion, using the year 2020 as a focal point for action. This blog series will spotlight financial inclusion efforts around the globe and share insights from key thought leaders in financial inclusion, with a specific focus on quality beyond access.
Tuesday marked a historic day for Peru: the country launched its National Financial Inclusion Strategy. While Peru has been lauded in the past for its environment for financial inclusion, its public-private sector partnerships, and its leadership in conversations on international banking standards, this national strategy elevates Peru’s commitment to financial inclusion to a new level. In particular, we want to celebrate the strategy’s commitments to consumer protection, financial literacy, and the inclusion of vulnerable people.
Analysis of the World Bank Global Findex this year revealed that countries that have a national strategy (not merely a commitment or stand-alone programs) for financial inclusion saw twice as much bank account access growth in the last three years compared to countries that did not have a national strategy. For Peru, this is great news, as according to the same data source, less than 30 percent of adults in the country had access to an account in 2014.
The path to financial inclusion articulated in the strategy, however, is not focused on access to accounts, making Peru an outlier among its peers that have implemented national strategies. Instead, Peru has oriented its strategy toward improving systems for accessing a range of products and promoting supportive consumer protection, financial education, and attention to the most vulnerable. The national strategy has seven different lines of action: Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director, CFI
The following post was originally published on the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth blog.
Reaching full financial inclusion by 2020 will require supportive policies in every country around the globe. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Global Microscope on Financial Inclusion, 2014” assesses the policy environment for financial inclusion in 55 countries. The Microscope examines 12 policy dimensions essential for creating an inclusion-friendly regulatory and institutional framework. The rigorous model incorporates input from hundreds of policy makers and participants in the financial sector and a review of existing policies and implementation. The resulting rankings represent the best readily available source for judging the state of financial inclusion policy around the world.
What’s surprising about the 2014 Microscope results is their wide range. Out of a possible 100 points, the top scorer (Peru) received 87 while the lowest (Haiti) earned only 16. If full inclusion requires good policies, it is disappointing to learn that the median score across all countries was a mediocre 46.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
Electronic payment systems are spreading so rapidly they’ve become a challenge to size up. Payment cards have been around in some form since the early 20th Century, but their outreach is still far from ubiquitous, even in countries like the United States. To get a sense of where we stand with the expansion of modern payment systems, I compiled some recent statistics from around the world.
In the United States, employers are increasingly using electronic payment cards to distribute compensation. As compared to checks that require processing, the cards receive funds immediately, and can be used like any other payment card to make purchases, transfers, and withdrawals. In 2012, more than $34 billion was loaded onto 4.6 million active payroll cards. By 2017, this is expected to grow to $69 billion over 10.8 million cards.
Electronic payments are experiencing rapid outreach in India in part through the government’s Aadhaar identification card initiative. Increasingly banks are accepting the biometric information-backed Aadhaar numbers as adequate Know-Your-Client information, and as part of its financial inclusion report released last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low Income Households recommends that every individual over the age of 18 receive an electronic bank account when they’re issued an Aadhaar number. As of December 2013, about half the country’s population had enrolled for the identification cards. The RBI plans to have the entire adult population enrolled in the system by January 2016. Among their utilities, the cards are being used to distribute social benefits of the government’s Direct Benefit Transfer scheme. A recent UBS Securities report estimates that the efficiencies gained from the card-based social benefit system could total up to 1.2 percent of India’s GDP.
> Posted by Ashutosh Misra, Principal Consultant, Interactive Forum on Indian Economy
New modes of payments, such as electronic cards, mobile money, and internet-based payments, are in some cases causing financial exclusion for those who prefer, or are only able to pay in cash. This is the major finding of a study commissioned by the European Foundation for Financial Inclusion (EUFFI) on the impact of new payment systems on financial exclusion in the U.K., France, Italy, Poland, and Sweden.
The report is of interest to India for three main reasons: the Reserve Bank of India’s emphasis on financial inclusion when granting new bank licenses; Indian banks expanding their use of electronic payments and non-branch interaction with customers; the Indian government’s focus on promoting direct electronic transfer of social benefits. The five European nations of the study are smaller than India in size and population, but they’re ahead technologically and in financial services market development. Nonetheless, millions of their citizens are restricted from having a bank account and hence do not have access to many new payment technologies. Also, significant populations are unable to perform transactions using the new technologies or would prefer to use traditional methods. If the new payment systems can be so disruptive there, India has miles to go before electronic payments can become the norm here.
For financial inclusion, access to basic banking services must be complemented by the right to use traditional means of payment, such as cash, if that’s the customer’s desired payment form. The EUFFI study finds that cash is often the only means of payment for those at risk of exclusion, but shows it is becoming harder or more expensive to pay in cash. On the other side of this, many merchants still aren’t able or don’t want to accept cards. An example of this shared in the report is unsuccessful asylum seekers in the U.K. who can get financial support from the government only in the form of plastic payment cards. These cards are credited weekly, and enabled to purchase essential goods from a restricted subset of shops. This inability to pay in cash results in hostile behavior towards asylum seekers in some shops and supermarkets.
> Posted by Solana Cozzo, LAC Prepaid Head, Senior Business Leader, MasterCard Worldwide
The Financial Inclusion 2020 project at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is building a movement toward full financial inclusion by 2020. Accordingly, this blog series will spotlight financial inclusion efforts around the globe, share insights coming out of the creation of a roadmap to full financial inclusion, and highlight findings from research on the “invisible market.”
Promoting the delivery of solutions that boost the financial inclusion agenda, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), is a shared goal that I am truly passionate about. Thankfully, advancing financial inclusion is a key driver at MasterCard, and through my affiliation with organizations such as Accion and the FI2020 movement, I am a firsthand witness to many effective programs that are moving our region, and our world, closer to being financially inclusive.
Notable work has been done recently in the government-to-person (G2P) payments space in LAC. Through efforts in this region, as well as elsewhere, there is now little doubt that in countries where financial payments infrastructure is underdeveloped the introduction of government electronic disbursement schemes via public-private partnerships helps spark the growth of broader payments and financial services ecosystems that benefit many.
In Brazil, for example, switching to electronic benefits cards helped reduce the administrative costs of Bolsa Familia (Brazil’s social welfare program) nearly seven-fold, from 14.7 percent to 2.6 percent of grant value disbursed. Overall, CGAP estimated that switching from cash to electronic delivery via agent networks generates roughly 40 percent in savings per transaction – cost savings that can be used to serve the poor.
In Argentina, the integration of electronic disbursements not only facilitates greater scope and convenience, but also provides a sense of dignity and security. The percentage of social benefits recipients who said they paid a bribe to local officials to access their benefit dropped from about 4 percent to less than 0.5 percent after the Ministry of Social Development moved to an electronic benefits card. An estimated additional US$11 million now gets into the hands of intended recipients.
Another notable electronic social payments initiative in LAC, which demonstrates the integral role of industry players alongside government, is from Davivienda, a local bank in Colombia. Davivienda is integrating their Daviplata mobile banking service into social benefits disbursements. The use of mobile money in social benefits programs has gained significant popularity in Colombia. In fact, about a third of all disbursements of Familias en Accion, the biggest conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, are now utilizing mobile technology.
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