The second meeting of the Standard Setting Bodies (SSBs) was convened by the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, Princess Maxima of The Netherlands, and the Chair of BCBS and Sweden’s Central Governor, Stefan Ingves on 19 March in Basel, Switzerland. 

During the meeting sessions, participants identified strong links between financial inclusion, financial integrity, financial consumer protection and financial stability, and agreed to work towards a better understanding of these linkages. Participants agreed on the growing need for robust consumer protection and financial literacy, the importance of obtaining and using financial inclusion data, recognizing the increasing ownership of financial inclusion among the SSBs, and the opportunities created by new innovations in the field. There was also a broad acknowledgement of the potential risks of financial exclusion, the need for risk-proportionate regulatory approaches and the challenge of translating these principles into more specific guidance for implementation.

Most notably, the participants highlighted the importance of increasing dialogue with developing and emerging countries. The need to compare and contrast financial inclusion experiences from a wide range of nations was recognized, and the rising number of developing countries now actively engaged in a variety of innovative financial inclusion programs was seen as an invaluable source for financial inclusion lessons learned and best practices.  

In her remarks to the participants, Princess Maxima highlighted the significant advancements that had been made over the last year, noting that, “There is clearly more attention to financial inclusion globally. Private companies, donors, angel investors and multilateral organizations are much more engaged. The OECD, the World Bank and the IMF have expanded initiatives to measure financial services for households and enterprises.” She then challenged the audience to recognize, “…our responsibility is to translate global momentum into practical actions to support national priorities.”

AFI members featured at the Basel meeting included: Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Executive Director, Alfred Hannig; the Governor of the Central Bank of Brasil, Alexandre Tombini; the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Brasil, Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva and; President of Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), Guillermo Babatz Torres.