Together with Banque Centrale de la République de Guinée (BCRG), the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) is hosting the 6th Annual Roundtable of the Leaders of the African Financial Inclusion Policy Initiative (AfPI), from 10-11 May 2018 in Conakry, Guinea.

The 6th Annual AfPI Leaders Roundtable is gathering more than 100 regulators and policymakers from 57 AFI member institutions and 33 countries in Africa, led by 12 Governors and Deputy Governors combined.

Dr. Louncény Nabe, Governor of the Banque Centrale de la République de Guinée is giving welcoming remarks. Opening speeches are provided by Dr. Alfred Hannig, AFI Executive Director, Mr. Stefan Nalletamby, Director of the Financial Sector Development at the African Development Bank (AfDB), Representing the President of AfDB, and Dr. Rogério Lucas Zandamela, Governor of the Banco de Moçambique, also AfPI Chairperson.

His Excellency, the Prime Minister of Guinea Mr. Mamady Youla is giving the keynote address on the theme “Digital financial inclusion in rapidly evolving finance ecosystem.” 

During the two-day Africa’s financial inclusion gathering of top policy makers, AfPI leaders are addressing how to best support deepening of financial inclusion in Africa and women’s economic empowerment. AFI female African leaders have been a crucial force in driving women’s financial inclusion through their work in AFI’s Gender and Women’s Financial Inclusion Committee and implementation of the Denarau Action Plan.

Discussions are focusing on digitally enabled cross border remittances, success factors for interoperability of digital financial services (DFS), credit infrastructure for women owned small and medium size (SMEs) enterprises, as well as the role of the regulator in ensuring responsible use of digital credit in Africa. The meeting also includes a high-level Public Private Dialogue (PPD) on bringing down the barriers for digital cross border remittances.

AfPI has been instrumental in addressing policy challenges in the region, such as the use of digital financial services to enhance financial inclusion in Africa. The 2017 Global Findex results attest to this fact, with Africa leading in the Mobile Money accounts, currently at 20.9% of adult population compared to 4.2% in South Asia, 5.3% in Latin America & Caribbean and 4.4% globally. The data also shows that 34.4% of adult population in Sub-Saharan Africa made or received digital payment in 2017, up from 26.9% in 2014.

The AfPI exchange helps collate experience and learning from across the continent, develop new solutions, document them and further share for the benefit of all.

The AfPI leaders are discussing practical solutions on policy and regulatory measures that support the development of digitally-enabled cross border remittances in Africa by addressing key uptake barriers. While highlighting the regulatory and market approaches for enhancing DFS interoperability in Africa, delegates are using practical examples to examine key policy and regulatory considerations.

As part of support for women’s economic empowerment, the AFPI leaders are addressing the barriers for women’s owned MSMEs/SMEs to access credit in formal financial institution. To ensure responsible use of digital credit in Africa, the leaders are discussing the role that the regulators have, while exploring key policy and regulatory approaches that facilitate effective consumer protection for digital credit in Africa. At the same time, participants area highlighting examples of the burgeoning digital credit market as well as the emerging solutions for their regulation and enforcement of market conduct.

On the side-lines of the Leaders Roundtable, a two-day technical training on Using Sex Disaggregated Data for Financial Inclusion and Approaches to Enhancing Financial Inclusion through Digital Financial Services is being held to equip members with the technical expertise required to implement the solutions identified at the meeting of AfPI Leaders.

Next AfPI leaders meeting will take place on 4 September, ahead of the 2018 AFI Global Policy Forum held on 5-6, September in Sochi Russia.

About AFI and Africa Financial Inclusion Policy Initiative

AFI is the world leader on financial inclusion policy and regulation. AFI is a a member-owned network of over 100 financial inclusion policy-making and regulatory institutions from 90 developing and emerging countries around the world, covering up to 85% of the world’s unbanked. AFI promotes and develops evidence-based policy solutions that help improve the lives of an estimated 1,7 billion unbanked, out of which 1 billion are women, who do not have access to formal financial services. 

AfPI is a regional platform for AFI’s African members to support and develop financial inclusion policy and regulatory frameworks in Africa, and to coordinate regional peer learning efforts. It includes 48 member institutions from 37 countries. 

The scope of AfPI includes policy solutions for small and medium enterprise (SME) finance, agriculture finance, and women’s financial inclusion. These solutions offer greater potential for deepening financial inclusion in Africa and go beyond the work on enabling regulatory environment for scaling-up mobile phone financial services.

The leaders of AFI member institutions in Africa unveiled the African Financial Inclusion Policy Initiative (AfPI) in May 2017 in Maputo, Mozambique. Moving beyond mobile phone financial services, AfPI is a successor of the African Mobile Phone Financial Services Policy Initiative (AMPI) that was launched in February 2013, in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

About Banque Centrale de la République de Guinée and AFI

Banque Centrale de la République de Guinée (BCG) is AFI Principal Member, having joined the network on 16th July 2009. BCG’s primary thematic areas of Maya Commitments for financial inclusion include:

•  Microcredit and Microsavings 
•  Consumer Protection 
•  Digital Financial Services 

BCG completed its target on extending access to quality financial services to the poor, as part of the digital financial services thematic area by enforcing the regulation of electronic money institutions in March 2015.

As part of microcredit and microsavings thematic area, BCG is working on modernizing the microfinance sector to extend access to quality financial services to the poor, while as part of consumer thematic area, BCG is engaged in preserving transaction security for better internal and external supervision.