The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) hosted the “Digital Banking: Technology and Innovation” international forum on 24 April 2015 in Minsk, with the support of “YurSpektr” and the portal infobank.by. The event brought together representatives of NBRB and the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), along with domestic and foreign experts in the banking sector, and leading experts of the banking retail services.

Speakers from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia and AFI all made presentations to discuss the prospects of the development of digital banking in Belarus, consider approaches to the development of financial services in the Russian Federation, and the development and implementation of digital technologies and innovative products in the banking and financial sectors of Ukraine, Latvia and Kazakhstan. Attendees also debated issues of improvement of regulatory policies to enable digital financial services, and shared innovative financial products and services from around the region. Private sector speakers included experts from leading companies in the industry of digital technologies in the field of remote banking to help demonstrate how these new technologies are able to allow banks to more easily serve customers and ensure a high quality of service, customer satisfaction, and minimize financial risks.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Sergei Dubkov, Deputy Chairman at NBRB, stated digital financial services are not just a remote banking channel, but also about providing a new trusted environment between the client and the financial institution. In this environment, the customer selects the financial player, products and services. He went on to add: “We all know the famous expression of Bill Gates, the client is not interested in banks—the customer is interested in the service.”

To support the development of digital financial services, NBRB has taken a number of steps. Taking into account the level of economic development in the financial market with banks, insurance, securities market and the role of microfinance players, the bank has focused on developing and focusing on providing the appropriate regulations and supervision of the financial sector. In addition, the issues of creating a confidential environment in all areas of the financial market is not possible without appropriate information and technology support. NBRB has been closely encouraging the banking and financial sector to invest in and develop their competencies in the area of information and digital technologies. In particular, Deputy Chairman Dubkov noted NBRB hopes to see systemic IT solutions that can improve business processes and noted this requires “a very serious change in mentality” for all players.

The Deputy Chairman also highlighted that 85 percent of all reports between the bank and financial system are via digital means today and the remaining 15 percent expect to be fully converted into digital means this year. He shared that the bank is also continuing to enhance its own IT systems as well.

NBRB has also established several public and private sector dialogue working groups specifically focused on enhancing digital financial services with banks, e-commerce providers, and other financial service providers. The bank sees itself as an integral part of these working groups considering the initiative in all segments of our economy. The result of the permanent working groups was an attempt to analyze and understand the specific problems that arise at banks, which are major players in the financial market in terms of digital financial services and financial inclusion in Belarus

Also of note, CBR’s Mikhail Mamuta conducted a presentation on the approaches to the development of digital financial services to improve affordability while John Owens, Senior Policy Advisor at AFI, presented the international experiences of the regulation of digital financial services.

The forum concluded with Helen Anthony, Vice-President of Belgasprombank in Belarus, outlining a unique approach to using crowdfunding to support SME clients. For clients that the bank is not yet able to finance, they offered to share the information that they learned during their credit investigation on a crowdfunding site, hosted in partnership with Hive Project and the bank. The public was then invited to invest in the business. If the business was able to attract funding and pay off the loans to their initial investors, the bank then could provide follow-on financing.

Overall the first public-private dialogue on digital financial services was considered a successful one that opened the eyes of the banks in the country to new opportunities to expand outreach and provide greater access to financial services. It also served as an example of the power and importance of regional peer learning and the role of public-private forums.

This is an excerpt from a story that originally appeared in the Info bank.by website.