With an emphasis on inclusive financial integrity, Cenfri provides technical assistance, tools and skills building to policymakers, regulators, supervisors and compliance heads looking to apply risk-based and outcomes accountable approaches to money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation-financing risk strategies. Combining our understanding of relevant risks, familiarity with the FATF guidelines, knowledge of identity and identity-proofing capabilities and leveraging our competency in risk data analytics, we support financial service value chains undertake assessments from national level to the financial product level, thereby enabling the adoption of appropriate customer due diligence practices. Cenfri is committed to assisting countries to move off the grey list responsibly, shaping national risk assessment processes with empirical data and working with remittance services’ compliance managers to ensure that low-income households are not disproportionately affected in receiving low-value remittances. We are interested in mitigating the longer-term impact of illicit financial flows using digital technology (regtech, suptech and AI) to evaluate and monitor illicit flows and enhance inclusive financial integrity. We have worked with BankServ Africa, FSD Africa, GIZ, IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances, UNCDF and AFI on a range of financial integrity and identity projects. |
Why focus on outcomes of use? The drive for greater financial inclusion is based on the understanding that financial inclusion has impacts on public policy goals such as socioeconomic development, poverty alleviation and growth. Financial sector policymakers set financial inclusion targets and design interventions towards these ultimate impacts, and development
ZedCredit from Zambia provides access to savings, loans and a credit score via their mobile app. ZedCredit is a fintech based in Zambia that participated in the DataHack4FI Innovation competition, Season 2. ZedCredit was conceptualised and founded in 2015 by Tundwa Siyubo, a business graduate from Zambia’s National Institute of Public Administration. It was registered in
DataHack4FI in-country winners from Ghana offer a multiple-database-verification API solution to identity verification. A lack of verifiable identification presents a significant barrier to individuals’ access to financial services. According to Findex 2017, 20% of financially excluded individuals mention a lack of identification as the main reason. In sub-Saharan Africa specifically,
Business executives in Africa frequently bemoan the difficulty in hiring local data science talent. And so, when we advertised for aspiring and experienced data scientists to participate in the insight2impact DataHack4FI Season 2 competition, we were pleased to receive applications from over 190 people. Across the continent, it seems young people
Financial inclusion is an important tool for enabling development and improving the lives of the poor across the globe. Up to now, most governments and organisations that seek to measure aspects of financial inclusion have focused either on access or uptake of formal financial services. While these measures are important,
The housing shortfall in Africa is immense. For instance, the World Bank (2017) estimates that across eight countries in West Africa about 800,000 new housing units are needed every year to address the housing shortages in those countries. Yet, banks in these countries collectively only issue 15,000 new mortgages per
Many people don’t actively use formal financial services. Understanding why can render important policy insights. This note unpacks the various drivers of usage. Usage at the core. Financial inclusion is recognised as a lever to support mainstream policy objectives like economic growth and human development. A key assumption is that the greater the
Women are significantly less likely to use formal banking services than men, due to a range of barriers to access and use. A lack of gender-disaggregated data makes it difficult to identify specific ways in which women may interact with financial products and services differently than men. One area that is little understood
Migration is on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), both in terms of migrants going to live abroad as well as within the region. With an ever-increasing need among these migrants to frequently and securely send money back home to support their networks of dependants, one would expect formal remittance
