Michaella is a Senior Associate working within inclusive digital finance, with a particular focus on insurance, payments, remittances, and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) space and has been a part of the team since 2018.
She is responsible for exploring opportunities for building resilience among low-income individual and small businesses; and has conducted diagnostics on the role insurance can play in economic development. On the payments side, Michaella is evaluating the benefits, risks and use cases for CBDCs, and understanding the link between remittances flows and migration in sub-Saharan Africa. This includes reviewing global innovations in know-your-customer compliance, conducting evaluations of global identity proxy initiatives for national payment systems, assessing the efficacy of national payment systems, monitoring the expansion of agent networks in Africa to inform private sector strategies, and segmenting consumers to better understand the financial needs of the underserved.
Michaella was also the primary liaison between Cenfri and the Digital Fiat Currency focus group at the International Telecommunications Union, as well as a research contributor. Prior to joining Cenfri, Michaella conducted research at the Labour Research Service and completed an internship at the South African Reserve Bank in the Economic Relations Policy Department.