ITU concludes policy recommendations to drive Digital Financial Services

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says it has concluded plans to formulate policy recommendations to further drive Digital Financial Services (DFS) across countries.
ITU Secretary-General, Mr Houlin Zhao said in a statement in Lagos, that after two years of extensive consultation, the ITU Focus Group on Digital Financial Services (DFS) had concluded its work.

Zhao said that the Focus Group came up with the publication of 85 policy recommendations and 28 supporting thematic reports.

He said that the group brought together more than 60 organisations from over 30 countries to drive greater financial inclusion for the estimated two billion people around the world who had remained unbanked.

According to him, governments around the world face many similar challenges in their efforts to deliver fully integrated digital financial services.
”Until now, solutions have largely been developed in isolation.

”This is the first time an organisation has sought to develop a comprehensive set of practical and integrated guidelines, drawing on expertise from across the financial service and telecommunication/ICT sectors.

”By reviewing and assessing international best practices, we have developed a practical toolkit that can be adapted to local needs.

”We hope it will help drive greater access and opportunity through the delivery of more affordable, accessible, secure, transparent and robust digital financial services for consumers and merchants in emerging markets,” he said.

Zhao said that the 85 policy recommendations offered guidance in areas such as digital liquidity, consumer protection to enhance DFS usage and data privacy.

He said that the policy offered guidance in digital identity and e-KYC (Know Your Customer), as well as interoperability and fair access to the communication channel.
The Chairman of the Focus Group, Mr Sacha Polverini said that while the work of the Group was complete, there was now the need to move from theory to implementation.
Polverini said that the work which had been done had resulted in a set of very operational policy recommendations.

He said that the value of the policy recommendations would be dependent on their systematic application in markets that needed guidance and support.

”We are now reviewing the opportunity to progress a new global initiative, which we hope to announce in April 2017,” the Focus Group Chairman said.

He said that ITU and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were organising a workshop on DFS and Financial Inclusion in Washington DC, U.S., on April 19 to be hosted by the World Bank.
According to him, the workshop will highlight the key findings of the Focus Group.

He said that the workshop would provide an overview of future initiatives and events to support the implementation of the recommendations issued by the Focus Group.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the Focus Group’s core suggestions include policymakers and regulators should support the growth of an open ecosystem for DFS that promotes innovation and ensures robust competition.

It recommended that regulators should standardise definitions of fraud types and require standardised, electronic and timely fraud reporting from providers.

The group suggested that access criteria for interoperability schemes should be clear, objective, publicly disclosed and allow new participants, banks and authorised/regulated non-banks to join.

”Policymakers should promote initiatives and incentives that encourage merchants and other payment acceptors, for example, utilities, farmers, government entities to accept electronic payments.
”Regulators should standardise digital identity registration, and ensure interoperability between DFS operators and service providers relying on digital identity.