The first FSD Network Conference was held in Livingstone, Zambia, from 14 to 15 November 2017. It brought together more than 100 participants from across the entire FSD network in 11 African countries to discuss the “Changing Landscape of Financial Sector Development in Africa”. As a close partner of FSDs in several African countries, Cenfri was invited to share emerging insights from the work it has done in partnership with FSD Africa under the Risk, Remittance and Integrity (RRI) programme.

Barry Cooper, technical director at Cenfri, presented on the importance of regulating for innovation and introduced a decision tree for considering different approaches.

He also presented on the potential of cross-border payments flows to act as pathways to financial inclusion and how the potential for remittance corridors in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to become digitised and interoperable with innovative technologies to reduce the current high cost of formal remittance flows into and within the region.

Lastly, he presented on the potential of a risk-based approach to mitigate illicit financial flows and reduce barriers to formal remittances, such as know-your-customer (KYC) requirements, without undermining national AML/CFT efforts.

This work forms part of the Risk, Remittances and Integrity programme, a partnership between FSD Africa and Cenfri.