This whole digital revolution. So it used to be that there was a stationary screen and with hdtv that was a big screen in the living room. But with the internet and the reless world extending things, now you have tab lets wifi all phones and over the place. Such that tv is not just a stationary leanback experience in the living room but very much of a mobile experience wherever you want to go. And its also video. The Brookings Institution recently released a study place such that tv is not just a ationary leanback with suggestions on how to make Financial Services more accessible around the globe. Last week the Brookings Institution host add discussion on that study. Good morning. E have set up a twitter feed so we would welcome any comments that you have on that. Globely there are about 2 billion individuals who suggestions on do not accounts. This and identify opportunities to broaden access to Financial Services. E examine four dimensions commitments make a difference in terms of progress towards Financial Inclusion . To what extent do mobile and other Digital Technologies advance Financial Inclusion . And what legal commitments make difference in terms of progress job of policy promoting Financial Inclusion . So we analyze in nearly two dozen different nations that brazil, colombia, india, indonesia, approaches do the best not too many years ago theres been Enormous Growth in the number of money deployment which is are really playing a fundamental role in many jurisdictions. Theres also a clear we see clearly the multiple pathways to Financial Inclusion. In some countries for example places like kenya mobile money that is using mobile phones as platform for transactions has been absolutely fundamental part of the inclusion story. But theres no one size fits all. The good news were seeing Good Progress on multiple pathways. The other observation is that in our study we did emphasize and take a very careful look at mobile and nonbank Financial Service providers. We believe that these are increasingly important mechanism force Financial Inclusion just because of the complexity of the geography and the infrastructure in many places it will be a very long youll ever, before branches ional bank bricks and mortar in many of the, for example, smaller villages in towns and some of these countries where many of these are covered or will be covered by very good mobile phone service and that allows that mobile phone to serve as a platform for financial transactions. Five key for example, smaller villages in towns and some of these countries where many of these are covered or will be findings. Country commitments matter. There are multinational Financial InclusionNetworks Alliance for Financial Inclusion which is we have the declaration through that. Countries that have signed up for the declaration are in most cases making good on the commitments associated with that. There are countries that have joined the better than Cash Alliance which has also been a critically Important Organization for promoting Financial Inclusion. So the countries that actively engage in those sorts of networks in general we found that those networks are extremely important and extremely effective in promoting inclusion. Secondly digital Financial Service ks accelerate Financial Inclusion. There are enormous advantages associated with digital and many environments. That doesnt mean there arent also concerns. For example cyber security. But on balance we believe that Digital Financial transactions offer enormous advantages in terms of alliance for financial security, efficiency, cost sufficiency, access locations and so on. So as those Services Become more common we believe that that will have a positive feedback cycle with respect to promoting Financial Inclusion. Third, geography generally matters less than policy legal and regulatory changes. That said we still observe some regional trends. For example, as i mentioned a moment ago you see mobile money being much more common in places that lack as much of a traditional banking infrastructure whereas in places with more extensive infrastructure you see mobile money playing less of a central role and banking correspondents playing a more central role. Fourth, coor coordination among key players in the space is really important. Clearly if youre looking at Something Like mobile money that impacts the Telecommunications Industry but it also impacts banks and ministries of finance and things like that. So there are complex questions that then face governments and regulatory bodies and so on when you try to make sure that these service ks be provided available at reasonable cost and critically can be interoperable. So for example a consumer is not locked only into extending or receiving money to and from people that happen to be customers of the same mobile phone networks. So coordination is an area where its extremely important for governments and also the private sector to be engaged. Then finally but last but certainly not least full Financial Inclusion cannot be achieved without addressing the gender gap. Were certainly not the first to recognize this. Its well recognized that theres a persistent gender gap under which women are often significantly more excluded from access to formal Financial Services than men. And of course you cannot have full Financial Inclusion unless you have Financial Inclusion for everybody including women. So closing that gender gap which unfortunately has not appeared to close in the last couple of years in general is something that is really important. The other final point i will mention is its also important to account for diverse cultural context. Different countries have different infrastructures. In the philippines, pawn shops have become very important sort of physical locations for money transmission. You can go to a pawn shop and give them money and they will transfer its to somebody else somewhere else in the philippines who can pick it up somewhere else. So Different Countries have different existing infrastructure that can be leveraged. One place may not necessarily be applicable in another place. We plan to publish another reported a year from now. We are very interested in continuing to foster dialogue among the many very active and critically important in this space which includes not only private sector companies, the alliance for Financial Inclusion and of course the governments themselves that are trying to work to promote film inclusion in these countries. That we welcome feedback. We want feedback. Any time youre trying to devise a scoring system there are choices that you make and it is impossible to design a system that is perfect. We think weve done a reasonably good job but we are also confident that we can do a better job. So we would welcome feedback on ways that we can improve our analysis in the future so that we can have an even better product as we continue with this project. That we welcome and we are also considering expanding the scope of a number of countries beyond the 21 that weve identified in this first report. So we would welcome suggestions on countries which people in the community believe are particularly important for us to consider in future rounds of the study. So with that i will move on and i will ask our moderator and our panelists to come up we will have what i am sure will be a very interesting discussion on Financial Inclusion. So thank you very much for your ime. Thank you, john. Its looking at a very long and skinny room here there and already seeing one its looking at a very long and skinny room here there and already seeing one of my challenges today which is going to be spotting you guys in the back because we are going to insist you participate in this. Im going to take the classroom pproach. Im the world trade editor of the financial times. I cover the International End of economics here from washington editor of the financial times. I cover the International End of economics here from washington. Get very interested in development and things like Financial Inclusion. Its something ive been learning a lot about. Since i moved here in january. Very happy to be up here moderating this discussion. Also, as i learned over the last few days as i was getting in touch with these people im the stranger on these stage. These are all friends and colleagues. They all know each other from the world of Financial Inclusion. Im the one unknown component here. I feel like the stranger invited to the thanksgiving for the family here. I will do my best to be provocative as a result. Let me just quickly run through our panel and then u move on to our discussion and get out of the way and really let these people who are some of the leading experts on the subject share their knowledge and their thoughts on the back of this very good new report. On my all the way left. The lead economist at the Development Research group at the world bank, also the keeper of something called the global fin desm report which is has everything and anything you ever want to know about Financial Inclusion. The he data that brookings report is based on. If you go visit her she will give you the little data book on Financial Inclusion which has just about every statistic you ever want to know about Financial Inclusion in the world. Next to her is jerry. Jerry is a Senior Advocacy and regulatory specialist on mobile money at gsma. Next to him karen miller whose chief knowledge and communicationles officer for womens world banking. Very well placed to talk about that gender gap that john mentioned. Tina next to her is a overnment relations specialist better than Cash Alliance which is a u. N. Based alliance. And was up early this morning grabbing the train down from new york. And next to me is loretta who is the Senior Policy Adviser for Financial Inclusion at the u. S. Treasury and can tell us a little bit about why the u. S. Treasury cares about all this. I thought we would start with the 30,000 foot view on whats happening in the world of Financial Inclusion and which is a some astonishing things have been happening in recent years. Something like 700 Million People gained Bank Accounts. But then theres also some challenges. So why dont you give us that broad view. Thank you. And thank you for a nice presentation of the report. So what is the landscape . The landscape today is we find in 2014 about 62 of adults around the world have an account either at a bank or Financial Institutions or the mobile money provider. Thats an increase of 700 million adults since 2011. Globely only about 2 have an account at the money provider. However, the number is 12 in Subsaharan Africa where 45 of the adults this is the only accounts they have. We have five african countries including tanzania kenya ueganda where more people have an account with the mobile money provider than the traditional bank. But its coverage is not only important for mobile money accounts but also permits the growth of agent banking. The xample, in china government moved to rolling out Digital Payment for government payments and they set up over half a million mom and pop shops now operate as bank agents to distribute the money and take deposits and provide additional the services. Moved banking so the new technology is driving mobile money accounts, driving bank agents, car based caubts. In 2017 well probably be asking questioned about products we havent yet dreamed up. But why does this matter . Yesterday i logged on to the computer set up an auto bill pay for my kids school fees this year and it was convenient but for the tens of millions adults around the world game ally women this is changer. In bangladesh ive been working with factories helping them automate their payments and these women tell us how on payday their mother inlaw waits for them to take away their full paycheck and now they cant. They cant keep track of their overtime so theyre saving every month for bangladesh ive with factories helping them automate their payments and these women tell generally expenses for their children. Its offering privacy and control especially wage payments. Its safer. So for example a study fund in the u. S. Found that after the u. S. Digitized began making Electronic Payments instead of checks crimes fell in the midwest. It also is critical for womens empowerment. The studys field experiments in kenya and elsewhere are showing that giving women an account to keep her savings gives her influence over servic. So the Household Budget decisions. She is able to discuss budget decisions with her husband. Spending on nut rishes food. We also can encourage savings the same way that i have through auto deposits. Think about 401 k plans which Digital Payments allow money to be taken off the top. It takes away the need to wait in line and takes away the literal step to deposit. Temptation ve the to spend the money. The money is taken off the top. We offered up ghana was one of the first countries to commit to digitizing their payments. Almost all report putting their wages into an account and we offer an optout savings, 10 of salary. Now 18 months later were seeing the money comes from a savings, drop in gifts to family and friends, which is often involuntary. And drops in hair product consumption. Nally allows people to build credit histories. One of the most exciting is the development of Credit Scores based on payment history the same way the past ten years banks and other lenders have been showing if you receive remittance payment every month or wage payments certainly shows in the future youre able to make that pay back a loan payment. So increasingly now tens of millions of new people by digitizing their wage payments, their remittance payments, suddenly they have a payment history in kenya and elsewhere the data is being used especially by Small Business owners to allow them to get appropriate credit. However, certainly we need to highlight that there are challenges in digitization. Theres challenges for basic level of ids. In many countries in bangladesh were dealing with the fact that especially women dont have any form of identification which is a necessary step to simply open an account. Its an interesting aside the employer records counts as identification for a small account at the bank or another financial institution. But we cant get the mobile accounts because to buy a card requires documentation. And thats what they dont have. E certainly have accounts becae infrastructure as my colleagues will talk about. Also basic education making sure people understand their pin numbers and to keep them private. In south africa, tragically the number of women would give their pin numbers to strangers to withdraw the money for them because they didnt feel infrastructure as my comfortable using this machine themselves. So i will end with a new favorite story. A colleague in zambia in a rural village was talking to a School Teacher paid every month by the government in cash. For the first two days of every month she closes the school in the village so she can travel to collect her money. She was complaining to us about the danger the Security Risk of Walking Around traveling with a wad of cash. But by digitizing her wage payments the schools would be open an extra two days a month. So the Financial Inclusion is a means towards an end allows people to have a safe place to can other oney but effects. Theres reason number one why we need more Financial Inclusion. More school for school kids. This is on the agenda at the ca u. S. Treasury. Tell us a little more about why its for you at the treasury. Thank you for having me here. I was asked to come and talk about why does treasury care about this and what are we doing about it. Im pleased to say that this is very definitely a high priority for treasury not just because Financial Inclusion is a good thing in its own right at an individual or Household Level but numerous studies have shown that there are broad Economic Growth and stability issues related to Financial