Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), a member of AFI, successfully completed hosting the International Week of Financial Inclusion (IWFI) in Brasilia to better enable AFI members and various guest delegations to exchange knowledge on financial inclusion with a strong focus on agent banking, rural credit, financial services consumer protection and financial education.

Participants included seven AFI members: Bangladesh Bank (BB), the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of India, the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP) of Mexico, Banco de Moçambique (BOM), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Ministère de l’Economie et des finances du Sénégal, and the Ministère de l’Economie et des finances du Togo.

The five-day practical and interactive program specifically covered the following crucial key learning points:

• The role and importance of agent banking in Brazil;
• The specific rules and regulations that can significantly impact the growth of agent banking;
• Supervising agent banking in Brazil:
• Tips and lessons learned;
• Challenges related to agent banking in Brazil;
• Rural credit regulation and supervision;
• Citizen assistance (‘complaints-handling’) and financial services consumer protection; and
• The impact of financial education in enhancing financial inclusion in Brazil.

The introduction of one-on-one sessions provided an excellent avenue for the attending delegations to deepen knowledge on specific financial inclusion areas that will lead to the formulation of new recommendations to amend or develop existing regulation frameworks in their home countries.

The IWFI is poised to further enhance cooperation between members of the AFI Network with a strong potential for peer advisory service emerging among BCB, CBN, BB and the Ministère de l’Economie et des finances du Sénégal. Additionally, the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) of Mexico has now expressed strong interest in co-organizing a peer learning program with AFI in Mexico.