Re: Suggest all WPIG have text on: Goal to advance economic/financial inclusion for unbanked/underbanked

It is imho a kind of chicken and eggs issue: till there is a clear roadmap
related to the topic, the big players would not be onboard, and at the same
time, it is hard to have a clear roadmap without big players on board.

Stephane this was my original point exactly. Let us make this a true goal,
along with accessibility - and at least one of theajor parties (traditional
financial services) may be more likely to come to the table, as they have
obligations in this regard.

And I happen to feel, as Jorge may too, that mobile brings the promise of
financial inclusion - through one of our other goals - to develop standards
that can also be utilized by new non-traditional financial services (at
that lower monetary value limit) to those who it never have before.
On Jul 27, 2015 6:50 AM, "Stephane Boyera" <stephane@sbc4d.com> wrote:

> Hi Adrian
>
> Thank you for launching the discussion. I think it is a very important one
> to have.
> I cannot agree more about the sentence "financial inclusion of the
> unbanked and underbanked" is all marketing and usually looking very
> suspicious.
> I believe that the term "financial inclusion" needs to be deconstructed,
> and detailed issues have to be identified. It is very hard to discuss at
> that level of abstraction, without identifying current issues that needs to
> be addressed.
> I personally doubt that identity is the core problem. It would be surely
> the case if the future of financial services in developing countries would
> follow a similar model as in western countries. I don't think it is the
> case, and the explosion of mobile money is another evidences that financial
> services would not follow the same path. I think that indeed the future is
> on mobile money, but there are today many challenges that prevent the full
> exploitation of the platform.
> As of now, mobile money is just a mean to transfer money from A to B as
> Joerg mentioned. But this is not financial services this is money transfer.
> How mobile money could be transformed in financial services is the key
> question, that is currently explored by many actors. As of today, in most
> countries for most oeprators, mobile money is jsut mobile transfer, with
> all accounts almost all the time empty.
> There are imho lots of issues, some might be related to this group, some
> are clearly not:
> *accessibility: how to make mobile services accessible for people who are
> illiterate
> *Financially literacy: how to make people aware of financial services and
> what are benefits etc.
> *interoperability: as of today, mobile money services are not
> interoperable: users can exchange money with other users on the same system
> (operators), and usually in the same country
> *Ecosystem: There is not real ecosystem today for mobile money. Users can
> pay only a very limited set of services, they can pay at shops (sometimes)
> but this is a burden for merchants because there is no receipts, not
> connection with accounting software etc.
> *connection with the web/ict services : it is very difficult today (and
> almost inexistent) to connect mobile money to web sites or mobile services
> in few words, mobile money has the potential to become a payment
> instrument, but the journey is still full of challenges. On the other hand,
> the lack of traditional payment instruments (credit card) is also a great
> opportunities for developing countries to leapfrog a generation of payment
> technologies (credit card and related elements) and directly develop their
> electronic payment ecosystem based on new web-based/mobile-based approach.
> I see few opportunities/options for WPIG to pick some specific items to
> address (interoperability, ecosystem, etc.) but the major challenge is imho
> the absence of the key players. During the workshop in Paris in 2014,
> Comviva, one of the biggest mobile money platform provider, made a
> presentation, but they didn't join, mostly because there was no real
> activity on the topic. In the same way, there is no mobile money providers
> (i mean they are companies in the group like some mobile operators who are
> offering mobile money services, put nobody from these departments are
> onboard) in the group. It is imho a kind of chicken and eggs issue: till
> there is a clear roadmap related to the topic, the big players would not be
> onboard, and at the same time, it is hard to have a clear roadmap without
> big players on board.
>
> Steph
>
>
> Le 27/07/2015 11:15, Adrian Hope-Bailie a écrit :
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> This may not be a popular response but I thought someone needed to play
>> devil's advocate (please note that this is my personal view, although
>> that should go without saying).
>>
>> I would love our vision to include a utopian world where we solve world
>> hunger and end all wars but we need to be cognizant of what is practical
>> for our group to genuinely influence. It's a personal bugbear of mine
>> how often companies or groups place themselves under the banner of
>> "improving financial inclusion" when they have no practical plan to do
>> anything but wring their hands and talk about the problem.
>>
>> The "financial inclusion of the unbanked and underbanked" is a
>> fantastically exploited phrase that everybody loves to bandy about as
>> something they are trying desperately to solve and I don't want us to be
>> one of those unless we have some real plans to make a difference. How
>> will financial inclusion be addressed using the Web and specifically how
>> will new Web standards be a part of that solution?
>>
>> The reality is that the majority of the unbanked and underbanked are in
>> the situation they are in because of issues of identity. The developed
>> world has decided that you may not have access to banking services if
>> you can't prove who you are and the less developed world must now play
>> by those same rules, no matter how practical it is to do so.
>>
>> The traditional banking system is unable to viably support the bottom
>> tier of customers because the onboarding cost of an individual by a
>> traditional bank (KYC etc) will never be recovered, assuming the
>> potential customer even has the necessary documents or proof to follow a
>> traditional KYC process. Banks are not charities so offering financial
>> services to this tier of customer is simply never going to come from the
>> traditional banking industry. There are almost weekly news releases
>> about how crypto-currencies will swoop in and resolve this but I'm yet
>> to see a practical example of how this will be achieved. I suggest that
>> you challenge anyone that tells you they are trying to address the
>> problem of the unbanked with the question: "How?". It's easy to say that
>> it's important, organisations like CGAP have proven it's value beyond
>> doubt, but it's a lot harder to implement solutions.
>>
>> At the F2F in NYC it was clear that identity is something the group is
>> not keen to try and take on right now. We all see it as important but
>> not important enough to be in scope for our first WG. So that leaves me
>> wondering, how do we plan on impacting financial inclusion through the
>> narrow scope of our current WG charter? I assume we agree that we are
>> not so then I propose it is not mentioned in that charter at all.
>>
>> In terms of the IG's vision, I'm on the fence. I see indirect benefits
>> that our work, specifically the Internet of Value CG and Credentials CG
>> work, will have for financial inclusion eventually but the resounding
>> apathy with which our group dealt with the Credentials CG's attempts to
>> charter a WG suggests to me that the IG claiming it genuinely wants to
>> contribute to improving financial inclusion is a stretch.
>>
>> As Manu correctly points out there are organisations like the Gates
>> Foundation that are tackling this issue head on but they are doing so
>> using simple solutions based on mobile phones and text messages.
>> Technology will certainly play a major role in solving these problems
>> over the coming years but the role of "the Web" is unlikely to be a
>> major one for some time and so I am struggling to see where the W3C, and
>> this IG, fits in today.
>>
>> I wholeheartedly support any initiative that will improve financial
>> inclusion (it has been a passion of mine for many years) and if it's
>> something people in this group truly believe we can influence then I'm
>> eager to hear how and make it a part of our vision.
>>
>> Otherwise, I'm afraid we are at risk of being another group adding to
>> the noise but with no practical solutions to put forward and that does
>> more harm than good because it distracts attention away from groups like
>> the Gates Foundation that are elbows deep in actually solving the problem.
>>
>> Hoping to be wrong (and climbing off my soapbox),
>> Adrian
>>
>>
>> On 27 July 2015 at 04:27, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com
>> <mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On 07/26/2015 02:03 PM, Louise Bennett wrote:
>>     > One of the major themes of this year's UN IGF is connecting the next
>>     > billion. I have been inputting to the inter sessional work on this
>>     > and have described the W3C payments initiative. The draft inputs are
>>     > now on the web site. Manu are you planning to do anything at the
>> next
>>     > IGF?
>>
>>     Unfortunately, I'm spread a bit too thin between the Web Payments and
>>     Credentials stuff in the technical standardization initiatives and
>> won't
>>     be able to participate in this years UN Internet Governance Forum.
>>
>>     Look out for Pindar Wong and Primavera De Filippi, as I think they
>>     intend to do something related around blockchain at IGF.
>>
>>     You may also want to link up with James Dailey at the Gates Foundation
>>     and their work on financial services for the poor.
>>
>>     I've cc'ed each of these people, please link up offline if you can.
>>
>>     > Do you want me to push this work as a sub-theme?
>>
>>     Yes, please, and let us know if this group (or the Credentials
>> Community
>>     Group) can help in any way.
>>
>>     -- manu
>>
>>     --
>>     Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>>     Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>     blog: Web Payments: The Architect, the Sage, and the Moral Voice
>>     https://manu.sporny.org/2015/payments-collaboration/
>>
>>
>>
>>
> --
> Stephane Boyera    stephane@sbc4d.com
> @stephb4d
> CEO                +33 (0)6 73 84 87 27
> SB Consulting      http://www.sbc4d.com
> Personal Tech Blog http://stephb.org
>
>
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