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
In implementing the Rwanda Economy Digitalisation Programme, Cenfri has worked with multiple stakeholders and partners to acquire datasets to inform policy that will improve the country’s digital economy. As the programme evolves, there is a growing appetite from policy and decision-makers for Cenfri’s data analysis. Our policy associate, Charles Semapondo,
Rwanda must be cashless by 2024 – that’s the bold target set in the National Payment System Strategy 2018-2024. This policy has strong empirical backing, with a whole range of literature that documents the benefits of digital financial services. Moving from cash to digital payments saves people travel and time
Ghana’s tourism industry presents an exciting landscape for growth, offering significant potential for youth employment and entrepreneurship. However, an effective digital presence is a prerequisite for competitiveness in the global tourism sector and in Ghana, digital technology adoption among tourism operators remains nascent. Data and digital technology increasingly enable tourism
Almost half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade every year – USD 362 billion of merchandise trade – settles in US dollars, despite the US accounting for less than 10 percent of Africa’s total trade in 2019. We believe that informal trade is even more dollar-based. This begs the question: what drives
If properly catalogued, classified and shared, public sector data can be leveraged to increase access to services, make service delivery more efficient and inform policymaking. Real-time data on traffic and urbanisation can inform urban planning efforts including mobility, energy and water consumption, for example. Combining machine learning techniques with access
Innovation opportunities for enhanced remittance access As part of our Remittance Access Ininitative (RAI), Cenfri conducted a regulatory assessment of seven countries (Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, The Gambia and Uganda) to consider whether the regulatory environment was conducive to innovations around the know-your-customer (KYC) and customer due diligence
Data-driven decision-making is becoming increasingly important in Rwanda. Very large datasets are generated in real-time across the economy: each time you transact using mobile money or purchase a bus ticket – to name but a few examples – data is generated. If public and private decision-makers can effectively draw on
Consumers face several frustrations with the potential to affect their experience of digital financial services. These include system glitches, inappropriate design, fraud, cybercrime, data breaches, opaque pricing, and more. The Digital finance: The consumer experience, 2023 report, which Cenfri developed for Consumers International, provides an assessment of the scale of
The authors of this report would like to acknowledge the support of the International Dialogue on Consumer Protection in Context of the SDGs, coordinated by GIZ. Consumer protection in digital financial services is important for sustainable development. The digitalisation of commerce and financial services has positively contributed to sustainable development
