Good afternoon, everyone.  On behalf of Ambassador Lenhardt and the staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) I am pleased to welcome you all to the Financial Inclusion Forum. 

 

I want to start by thanking USAID’s co-sponsor for the Forum, the U.S. Department of Treasury.  I thank them for hosting us today, and for the incredible energy they are bringing to the Administration’s efforts to advance financial inclusion and economic participation – both domestically and internationally.

 

I also want to thank USAID’s Digital Finance team for their hard work putting this forum together. 

 

And, most importantly, thank you all for being here. Whether you are a leader in the private or non-profit sectors, or a colleague from across the Federal Government, you are all working to ensure that people around the world have the opportunity and the tools they need to contribute to their own financial growth and security. 

 

This is absolutely critical.  At USAID, as many of you know, our mission is partnering with others to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies.  That is an ambitious goal, and it simply won’t be possible unless people everywhere can take advantage of affordable and safe financial services.  That includes underserved households and communities throughout the developing world, as well as here at home.

 

That’s one of the reasons this issue is so important to President Obama’s Administration, and it’s why we wanted to bring everybody together for the next couple of days.  All of our agencies and organizations touch these communities in different ways.  We have different policy levers or regulatory mechanisms, we offer different services, and we focus in different places and on different types of markets. 

 

That means we have a tremendous opportunity to learn from each other.  To figure out what’s working and what isn’t, and to see what we can accomplish working together. 

 

We need to move quickly to do this, because the challenges are immense.  Currently, two billion people are completely outside the formal banking sector.  That means they lack the basic financial management tools required to save for aspirational goals.  It also means when they are hit by a financial shock of some kind – whether a natural disaster or economic crisis – they can’t bounce back as easily, and are often plunged even further into poverty. 

 

At USAID, we are working to reach the two billion and empower them to take control of their economic futures.  We have prioritized the use of electronic payment systems to help accelerate this.  Cell phones and other digital platforms offer a comparatively cheap, fast, and safe vehicle for achieving universal financial inclusion, and more and more people throughout the developing world are getting access to them.

 

We are fostering this expansion by working with developing countries to encourage forward-leaning policies and regulations that level the playing field, promote competition, and enable robust digital finance ecosystems to flourish in any given market. 

 

This is especially important in places such as the Philippines and Indonesia.  When you have more than 7,000 islands making up your country, not everyone’s going to be able to walk into a brick and mortar bank or government office.  That’s why USAID worked with the Government of the Philippines, banks, and mobile network operators to expand mobile financial services throughout the Philippines.  Government agencies are increasingly adopting electronic systems for payment and collection.  For example, Quezon City’s local government is using mobile money to disburse social grants to 13,000 public school teachers and 5,000 scholars, and also to collect property taxes. 

 

Our work in the Philippines has helped more than 10 million Filipinos benefit from more efficient financial services.  But there’s still a great deal of work to do around the world – including here in the United States – and that’s where you come in. 

 

My hope is the conversations you all begin through this forum will ultimately lay the foundation for a real whole-of-government strategy to promote financial inclusion, one that involves substantial collaboration with the private sector.

 

With that in mind, the sessions today were designed to highlight three main themes that will inform tomorrow’s discussion.

 

The first is promoting a better understanding of the challenges facing consumers who are excluded from the financial system.  Raise your hand if you’re one of the folks who experienced that firsthand this morning in the FinX by trying to cash a check without a bank account, among other things.  It’s not easy, and it’s not cheap – ask them about it. The fact is exclusion imposes significant costs on families, societies, and entire economies.

 

The second theme highlights the tools to overcome financial exclusion, whether that’s mobile phones, new business models, or more available data.  We have seen these tools at work already, but we also need to learn to apply them in new and innovative ways.  Just as importantly, we need to be clear-eyed about what it takes to make the business case work for reaching underserved communities with relevant, safe and affordable financial services.

 

And the third is what we can accomplish together.  With the tools we have at our disposal, and a shared understanding of the challenges we face, I think you’ll see that we can make a real difference when we work together.  

 

I know you have a busy day ahead of you, and I want to let you get to it.  But first I want to extend a few small challenges for you to keep in mind throughout the day. 

 

 

With those things in mind, I know you will get a lot out of the sessions today.  Now, I have the honor of introducing someone who has seen the power of financial inclusion throughout his career.  Dr. Tilman Ehrbeck is a Partner at Omidyar Network with more than 25 years of experience in financial services and inclusive businesses at a host of leading organizations.  Working across Africa, Asia, and North America, he has dedicated much of his life to advancing financial inclusion for the poor and understands how urgent it is that we all take action together.

 

Thank you all again for being here, and for all of the great work you are already doing to help promote shared prosperity across the country and around the world. 

 

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Ehrbeck.