Financial inclusion

WSBI has gained a significant reputation in the Financial Inclusion space. This has become one of the most important international policy issues worldwide, since it was included in the G20 agenda in 2010 and the World Bank launched an initiative in 2013 “to provide universal financial access to all working-age adults by 2020.” This issue is also an important policy objective for WSBI and its members as illustrated by the Marrakech Declaration “An Account for Everyone” that was adopted by WSBI members at the WSBI Congress in Marrakech in 2012. 
 
Examples of WSBI activities in the field of Financial Inclusion

· WSBI is working with the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) to connect with policy makers and influence them regarding their financial inclusion policies with a view to facilitating members’ conditions of operation, based on their positioning captured from data analysis of lessons learnt from the WSBI Doubling Savings Accounts programme in Africa, Asia and Latin America and other members’ experiences. WSBI has been successful in drawing the attention of policy makers to the critical business positions that are a pre-requisite to the goal of full financial inclusion as well as supporting members in developing their related business models.

· This reputation and achievements are reflected by invitations to speak at prestigious international conferences and workshops on this topic. Examples include addressing AFI organised conferences for central bankers on the topics of how to leverage international remittances for financial inclusion (Kuala Lumpur, June 2013) and developing and developed country perspectiveson financial inclusion (Frankfurt, July 2013). WSBI has also delivered workshops to the European Investment Bank, the World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, United Nations Capital Development Fund and Better than Cash Alliance staff in 2013.

· WSBI has successfully intervened with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2010 to convince them to adapt their original anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) rules to a more adapted risk based approach (RBA) based on the national context and to risks posed by transactions. The aim was to reach low income people and promote the goal of financial inclusion. WSBI is now also represented on the FATF RBA project group.