How do we break the barriers of mobile financial services to make financial inclusion real? AFI members examine emerging challenges.

Key Takeaways

1. Interoperability is a means to an end. Financial inclusion should be a key focus rather than interoperability itself. Although it is a tool that can contribute to financial inclusion in certain circumstances, it does not guarantee it.

2. Interoperability must make business sense. Regulators need to be cautious about intervening and ask whether they are creating risks and extra costs for service providers by launching products and services in a market that is not ready to support them. Without a strong regulatory framework and customer confidence in the security of the system, interoperability will not succeed.

3. Timing is everything. There is no question that we need interoperability – the question is when and how. The maturity of the market must be taken into account and data and information need to be gathered that reveal the right time and the right source to launch services.

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