Promoting Financial Inclusion through Innovative Policies

This document presents a report of a workshop on promoting financial inclusion organized by the Advisory Group on APEC Financial System Capacity Building, APEC Business Advisory Council, Asian Development Bank Institute, and Alliance for Financial Inclusion.

The workshop provided a peer-to-peer learning and knowledge-sharing platform among policymakers. Participants included senior government officials and regulators involved in microfinance in Asian and APEC developing economies, senior executives of relevant public sector firms, and private sector representatives.

Policymakers, regulators, and international organizations will need support in designing and implementing national strategies for financial inclusion. This will require good diagnostics to indicate where they are in terms of financial inclusion, common frameworks to design policies that promote access, better coordination among agencies and with the private sector, new products and services for those outside the mainstream, and effective methodologies to measure policy impact. Workshop participants discussed:

• Technology and new delivery channels that enhance potential of microfinance;
• Balance that regulation should strike between innovation and consumer rights;
• Role of public banks in financial inclusion;
• Need for strengthening consumer protection;
• Public-private partnerships to widen financial inclusion.