Policymakers, regulators and supervisors in emerging markets are under pressure to develop, implement and enforce policy and regulation that conforms to global best practice but is effective locally despite considerable constraints. Cenfri leverages the legal background, policymaking and regulatory experience of key team members and assists via direct regulatory development or policy guidance but more often through technical assistance and skills building.
Much of our work has been in the financial sector across Africa, Asia and Latin America. This includes an impressive “regulating for innovation” portfolio in support of financial sector regulators who are grappling with innovation or market development mandates in regulatory environments that do not effectively accommodate the range of risks presented by new financial service innovations. We also support improved digital and data governance in Africa. Examples range from creating a set of scenarios on the possible digital futures in Africa, to developing a data-sharing policy for the Government of Rwanda and researching fit-for-context open finance solutions for Africa.
Innovation can enable insurance to become a powerful engine of growth and development across the continent, but achieving this requires that market players and regulators work together to build an ecosystem in which responsible innovation can thrive. For regulators, doing so means not only understanding the current state of innovation
Nothing illustrates the incredible power of data-driven decision-making more than the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Lamenting the disparities in genomic sequencing data from high versus lower-middle income countries, Professor Happi, from the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria, has talked about the pressure they experienced early
When I first travelled through Mozambique, the picture was idyllic. Leaving sprawling Maputo behind, my main impression was of beaches, coconut trees and serene dhows. Every now and then you pass through a small village. You plan your mileage carefully, or run the risk of being left to buy plastic bottles
CGAP’s focus note, Facilitating Market Development to Advance Financial Inclusion, presents FinMark Trust as a “facilitator” for financial market development in South Africa. A facilitator is an informed, trusted, independent and locally based interlocutor responsible for making sure that the needs of all parties in the financial system are met. What
See you in court? Unlikely. In recent times most law courts in Africa have not been suitable places to enforce or defend low-value retail credit contracts – the transactions costs associated with the legal process swamp the value of most claims. A lender usually only goes to court in order
Globally, the financial inclusion agenda has focused on migrating consumers, providers and governments to digital payment instruments, in a bid to reduce the cost of payments and to allow for the digitisation of other services for which payments are required (e.g. savings, credit and insurance). However, despite the increasing focus
This blog series seeks to generate a broader discussion on the data that is needed to close the gender gap in financial inclusion in ASEAN. A previous blog post argued that the headline data available on financial inclusion in the ASEAN region – the percentage of women with access to
Underlying the global financial inclusion agenda is the assumption that providing access to and ownership of bank accounts will improve the lives of previously excluded adults and contribute to economic growth objectives. This assumption is reinforced by surveys such as Findex and FinScope, which monitor the progress of financial inclusion
The Finance Forward series aims to collect and present key findings on recent trends, driving forces, and relevant issues impacting upon the financial sector in Africa. The series intends to help leaders scan the larger, interlocking environments from which trends and themes emerge and interpret the contents based on the
In the six countries featured in the MAP Global Insights series, informal financial services persist despite an explicit push both globally and within the countries to migrate consumers towards formal financial services. Whilst it is increasingly acknowledged that informal services often offer benefits that formal services do not (such as
Depth sounding: shifting measurement away from a one-dimensional view of financial inclusion (Note 2) is the second note to be published from the MAP Global Insights series. It introduces a new approach to measuring financial inclusion. To the traditional emphasis on measuring ‘breadth’ – that is, the number of people using any
