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Johannesburg, South Africa, September 7, 2016
—IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, together with The MasterCard Foundation today launched the Digital Financial Services and Risk Management Handbook to support the expansion of mobile money and agent banking to increase financial inclusion.
The last decade has seen a wave of innovative financial services aimed at reaching low-income individuals, micro-entrepreneurs and rural populations in developing countries. This has resulted in a remarkable rapid expansion of financial inclusion in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and is making an important contribution to the goal of reaching Universal Financial Access by 2020.
The many opportunities provided by ground-breaking technology and innovative business models, however, also bring new risks. Many attempts at launching mobile money and agent banking struggle or fail. To support the continuing expansion of financial inclusion through well-designed and well-functioning digital financial services, IFC and The MasterCard Foundation have produced a practical handbook for financial industry practitioners.
Ann Miles, Director of Financial Inclusion and Youth Livelihoods at The MasterCard Foundation, said, “The financial services industry in developing countries has done significant work in the past few years on new ways to best serve remote or excluded people with the financial services they want and need. We’ve now distilled those lessons learned and developed some day-to-day, practical do’s and don’ts about mobile money and agent banking, advice that we think practitioners will find timely and useful.”
The Digital Financial Services and Risk Management Handbook
is a knowledge product of the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, a joint initiative of IFC and The MasterCard Foundation to expand financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s written for use by microfinance institutions, banks, mobile network operators and payments service providers that are implementing digital financial services.
Riadh Naouar, head of IFC Financial Industry Group Advisory Services in Africa, said, “We have worked closely with a range of mobile money providers to ensure this handbook is hands-on and helpful. Digital Financial Services is a nascent and fast evolving industry with many risks, but by working together we can change the financial landscape in Africa to include everyone.”
The handbook is available in pdf format
online
, free of charge. A limited number of hard copies are available for financial intermediaries, and can be requested by email from Anna Koblanck on
akoblanck@ifc.org
.
About The MasterCard Foundation
The MasterCard Foundation works with visionary organizations to provide greater access to education, skills training and financial services for people living in poverty, primarily in Africa. As one of the largest private foundations, its work is guided by its mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world. Based in Toronto, Canada, its independence was established by MasterCard when the Foundation was created in 2006. For more information and to sign up for the Foundation’s newsletter, please visit
www.mastercardfdn.org
. Follow the Foundation at @MCFoundation on Twitter.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. Working with 2,000 businesses worldwide, we use our six decades of experience to create opportunity where it’s needed most. In FY16, our long-term investments in developing countries rose to nearly $19 billion, leveraging our capital, expertise and influence to help the private sector end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
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