Welcome to Financial Inclusion Week 2024

FIW Year

2024

Transcripts:

Summary + Key Insights

Welcome to Financial Inclusion Week 2024! Join us in reflecting on a decade of progress in inclusive finance as we aim to serve the underserved.

🌟 Financial inclusion is key for economic empowerment, helping to combat poverty and gender inequality. Addressing these issues remains a priority.
📱 The integration of emerging technologies can enhance financial access, but we must ensure equitable outcomes for marginalized communities.
🎨 Designing financial services with the underserved in mind is crucial for effective solutions, shifting from a vertical approach to a holistic view of finance.
🚀 The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital financial services, creating new opportunities for inclusion but also presenting new risks.
🌱 Climate change impacts vulnerable populations most severely, underscoring the need for resilient financial solutions in the face of global challenges.
📈 Diversity in human capital and collaboration across sectors fosters innovation in financial solutions, enhancing systemic resilience.
📝 Gathering feedback and iterating on services will improve future Financial Inclusion Weeks, ensuring continuous improvement and relevance.

This session summary was AI-generated using NoteGPT.

Financial Inclusion Week is an opportunity for the global inclusive finance community to share ideas, thoughts, and actions as we collectively work to advance inclusive financial services. As we kick off the 10th anniversary of FIW, we hear from experts in the industry on the progress we’ve seen over the past decade and predict what’s needed to continue advancing financial inclusion in the next decade.

Session Speakers

Nataša Goronja

Managing Director, Center for Financial Inclusion

Nataša serves as CFI’s Managing Director where she shapes CFI’s vision and drives strategy implementation, building upon CFI’s strong foundation. She also ensures the quality of CFI’s programs, including oversight of research and publications, and develops influence and funding strategies in support of CFI’s work. Nataša comes to CFI from the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, housed at Santa Clara University. There, she served as lead for the Center’s social enterprise ecosystem product offerings and supported organizational alignment, strategic planning, business development, and key stakeholder engagement. She previously worked with the World Bank and IFC on financial inclusion, digital finance, and consumer protection. Earlier in her career, Nataša served as the Vice President of The Boulder Institute of Microfinance. Nataša has a graduate degree in European Integration Studies from the University of Bologna and University of Sarajevo in partnership with the London School of Economics and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from William and Mary. She is fluent in English and Bosnian.

Graham A N Wright

Group Managing Director, MicroSave Consulting (MSC)

Graham A.N. Wright founded MicroSave Consulting (MSC) and is currently its Group Managing Director. He has 35 years of development experience underpinned by five years of experience in management consultancy. He is a reformed Chartered Accountant. Graham has been deeply involved in digital financial services (DFS) since he supported M-PESA’s initial pilot-testing process. He has worked on DFS projects with governments, banks, fintechs, and telcos across Asia and Africa. These involved strategic planning, market research, product development, process analysis, agent network development, and marketing. Currently, Graham is leading MSC’s work on AI, climate change, locally-led adaptation, and agriculture; and how blended finance and DFS can play a catalytic role in these to enhance the resilience of climate-vulnerable communities. Graham is a regular speaker at conferences and has authored over 250 papers, blogs, and briefing notes, as well as an array of training materials on organizational development, DFS, and climate change.

Omoneka Oyier

Acting Sr. Director, Technical Areas, MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates)

Omoneka (Omo) Oyier currently serves as the Director, Business Value Creation and as Interim Sr. Director within MEDA’s Technical Areas of Practice. Omo brings a wealth of expertise as a seasoned professional with 15 years of experience, including 11 years at the International Finance Corporation. Her background involves advising both private and public institutions on the development of financial inclusion strategies and the implementation of digital financial services targeting underserved segments, such as small and medium-sized enterprises, women, youth, and rural populations. Omo brings this extensive experience to the Business Value Creation team to advance MEDA’s approach to increasing access to finance for agribusiness clients. Omo holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations and International Economics from John Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Payal Dalal

Senior Vice President, Social Impact, International Markets, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth

Payal currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Social Impact, International Markets at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. She joined the Center in April 2018 and oversees the Center’s philanthropic investments around the globe. Previously, she was Head of Global Community Programs for Standard Chartered Bank. In this capacity, she oversaw all programs related to education, health, emergency response, and disaster relief. Payal joined Standard Chartered in July 2008 as the Head of Public Affairs for the Americas. With a professional background in international philanthropy and politics, Payal has worked for a wide range of public sector organizations including the World Affairs Council, the Global Philanthropy Forum and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Payal also worked on foreign policy for the Office of President William J. Clinton. In 2014, President and Secretary Clinton appointed Payal to be a program advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative; her post was renewed in 2015. Payal has extensive experience in financial services as well. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, she worked on the launch of the AT&T Universal Savings and Reward Card for Citi. A Texas native, Payal has a BA with honors from Stanford University and an MBA and an MPA from New York University.

Gabriela Zapata Alvarez

Financial Inclusion Consultant, Mexico In-Country Rep, CGAP

Gabriela Zapata is a strategic advisor to various private and public institutions and fintech startups involved in financial inclusion in Latin America, with special emphasis on Mexico. She is also actively involved on a number of projects focusing on applied product innovation, user-centered design, behavioral sciences, product cross-sell, access channels, financial capabilities and others with MetLife Foundation, Bankable Frontier Associates, CGAP and the Center for Financial Inclusion. Previously, she was Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Director of Promotion of Financial Organizations at the Ministry of Agriculture in Mexico. She holds a master’s degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University and lives in Mexico City.

Amolo Ng’Weno

CEO, BFA Global

Amolo is CEO of BFA Global. She is based in Nairobi but runs the company worldwide. Her recent areas of interest include the changing nature of work in developing countries with the growth of the digital economy; harnessing technology to provide micro-entrepreneurs with the financial and technical tools for growth; and how data analysis techniques can improve regulators’ interactions with customers, including for resolving disputes. Formerly, she was the Managing Director of Digital Divide Data Kenya, a social enterprise that provides data and research services to companies and governments, while hiring young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and supporting their higher education. Prior to that, Amolo held a position as Deputy Director in the Financial Services for the Poor team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In that role, she worked to improve scale, range and impact of financial services available to the poor in developing countries. Prior to her work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Amolo worked in Kenya, her native country, where she was the COO of the Trust for African Rock Art. She also co-founded Africa Online, East Africa’s first internet provider, which operated in eight countries before sale to Telkom South Africa. Amolo holds a BA in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University and a Master of Public Affairs (MPA) from Princeton University.

Kim Wilson

Sr. Researcher and Sr. Lecturer, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

As a Sr. Lecturer in International Business and Human Security, Kim has deeply enjoyed both teaching and research activities at the Fletcher School. Kim joined the faculty in 2005 and is proud to have received the James L. Paddock award for excellent teaching in 2009. Because she is half-time on the faculty, Kim has continued to undertake intensive fieldwork for the World Bank, several UN organizations, and many international NGOs. In the classroom, this has allowed her to apply first-hand, highly practical examples to theoretical frameworks in a range of sectors— from financial inclusion to education to agriculture. Since 2016, Kim has focused her research exclusively on the financial journeys of refugees and migrants, paying particular attention to transcontinental journeys. This led her to launch the Journeys Project (http://sites.tufts.edu/journeysproject/) in 2018. The site illuminates the economic and financial strategies that migrating people use to amass funds prior to a journey, access money along the way, and manage finances once they reach a destination, whether final or temporary. Kim’s research on the financial elements of migration has been promoted or sponsored by the UN High Commission on Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, UN Capital Development fund, the German Agency for International Cooperation, the Open Society Foundations (via IRC), Catholic Relief Services, The International Rescue Committee, and Mercy Corps. Fletcher masters’ students have been deeply involved in Kim’s field research and have documented the financial experiences of migrants and refugees in many locations, including East Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America, and the United States. In 2023, Kim published a chapter in Global Human Smuggling (Johns Hopkins Press) and co-authoring a book with Daryl Collins on the financial journeys of refugees (Princeton University Press).

FIW REsources

Explore Financial Inclusion Week sessions from previous years.

Hosted annually by the Center for Financial Inclusion, FIW brings together global leaders to exchange ideas, share research, and offer perspectives to inform the future of inclusive finance.

Browse SEssions