BIS: Second GPFI/BIS conference explores implications of rapid progress on digital financial inclusion
31 October 2014
An estimated 2.5 billion people currently have no access to formal financial services such as payments, credit, insurance and savings.
The Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) hosted the second G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) Conference on Standard-Setting Bodies and Financial Inclusion on 30-31 October.
The conference's theme was "Standard-setting in the changing landscape of digital financial inclusion". Conference participants explored the implications for regulators, supervisors, standard-setting bodies and customers themselves of the innovative, low-cost, digital transaction platforms that are facilitating financial inclusion.
BIS General Manager Jaime Caruana noted in his opening remarks , "The regulatory, supervisory and standard-setting challenges - and likewise the solutions - include those we currently face, and others we can only imagine as billions of new digital finance users go online."
The conference was attended by representatives from six global standard-setting bodies and the GPFI who are engaged in work relevant to digital financial inclusion. The standard-setting bodies represented were: the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS).
In addition, the International Organization of Security Commissions (IOSCO) joining a GPFI gathering for the first time, in recognition that digital finance also includes investment products, accessed through digital transaction platforms.
Mr Caruana noted that the participating bodies "have the opportunity - and indeed the responsibility - to prepare the standard-setting world for both the risks and the rewards of the digitisation of financial services".
G20 Leaders have recognised the critical role of the global standard-setting bodies in advancing financial inclusion. At their summit last year, the Leaders urged standard-setting bodies to focus on game-changing forces such as digital financial inclusion that touch the mandates of all of the standard setters.
© BIS - Bank for International Settlements
