At the conclusion of the regional MFS conference held in Zanzibar, Tanzania on 1-2 March 2012, Governor Benno Ndulu of the Bank of Tanzania and Central Bank of Kenya Governor Njuguna Ndung’u called for the formation of a regional policy and regulatory effort to promote and expand the use of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) throughout Africa.

The Africa Mobile Financial Services Policy Initiative, or AMPI, will engage members in making measurable commitments on MFS policies and regulations. The initiative is part of the implementation of the Maya Declaration commitment made by the members of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) during the 2011 AFI Global Policy Forum in Mexico. Many AFI members have already made specific national Maya Commitments but AMPI represents the first regional effort to tackle the challenge of bringing the world’s unbanked into the formal financial system.

In support of this initiative, the AFI MFS Working Group will play a key role by facilitating dynamic peer learning activities and by producing MFS policy and regulation knowledge products based on good practices of AFI members.

AMPI will be closely linked to the efforts of the global financial inclusion community and will support “The G20 Principles for Innovative Financial Inclusion”. While using the peer learning platform provided by AFI, the initiative will also work with key international standard setting bodies and development partners, as well as leaders in the private sector.

In his closing remarks at the Zanzibar conference, Bank of Tanzania Governor Benno Ndulu noted that the Africa Mobile Financial Services Policy Initiative represented much more than a forum or meeting. It is, he said, the next step in the evolution of financial inclusion policy development. Through this regional effort, African financial policy leaders will be ‘networking for change’, allowing the best and most effective elements of Africa’s national policies and programs to be shared, and placing the continent at the forefront of mobile financial services development and innovation.

This initiative will be governed by an Africa Leaders Roundtable, who will organize regional forum meetings on an annual basis. The organization, goals and structure of AMPI will be further detailed over the next 6 months, with the members of the Africa Leaders Roundtable providing a progress report at the 2012 AFI Global Policy Forum, set to take place in Cape Town, South Africa.