This year’s FIS International Client Conference, held from 22-24 May in Dubai, explored linkages between financial inclusion and the private sector, as well as the need for continuing cooperation in order to benefit from what many see as an ideal moment of convergence in technology, demand and appropriate policy.

The chair of AFI’s Mobile Financial Services Working Group (MFSWG), Carlos Lopez-Moctezuma (CNBV) gave a powerful presentation on financial inclusion and the great opportunity it offers to the private sector. He noted that global conditions in four key areas, (technology, experience, regulatory environment and political will) had now developed to such an extent that the time was right for rapid scale-up of financial inclusion and activities around the globe. “It is”, he said, “arguably the last big frontier for the financial sector”. 

In her part of the presentation, SungAh Lee (AFI) focused on the recently announced Maya Declaration and the extensive efforts already underway by emerging and developing world policymakers to expand access to formal financial services to the worlds unbanked through innovative policy and specific actions. She highlighted that nearly 30 countries have made specific and measurable commitments to financial inclusion in the 9 months since the Declaration was adopted at the 2011 AFI Global Policy Forum in Mexico.

Both AFI presenters noted that financial inclusion could only succeed with the support of the private sector and that this support would bring benefits to both users and providers. There is an untapped market of 2.5 billion unbanked waiting to become a part of the formal financial sector, potentially bringing new investment opportunities to the global economy as well as new development opportunities to the worlds poor. 

AFI’s participation in the conference will help promote a more open and systematic dialogue between regulators and the private sector as they work towards bringing smart financial inclusion policies to life.