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Dakar, Nov 27 (APS) – The accelerated development of digital finance products or "e-money" has helped to consolidate the momentum for financial inclusion in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) backed Tuesday in Dakar the governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Tiemoko Meyliet Koné.
This perspective, which has benefited from the "digital revolution" of recent years, has generated "significant spin-offs" within the WAEMU, he said at the opening of a high level Forum on the theme "Technological innovations for financial inclusion".
"Innovations, and in particular the adoption of mobile phones and smartphones, have facilitated the widening of access to financial services for companies and populations that were previously difficult to reach," Koné said.
He adds that the "remarkable development" of financial inclusion over the past decade can not be dissociated from the expansion of technological innovations around the world.
According to Tiémoko Meyliet Koné, financial inclusion must be understood as "all the reforms carried out (…) to make better use of innovations, with a view to promoting people's access to financial services in conditions favorable to vulnerable populations" .
Citing the 2017 "Global Findex" triennial report, he points out that the proportion of account holders who have sent or received payments electronically has increased from 67% in 2014 to 76% in 2017 worldwide and from 57 70% in developing countries.
The Global Association of Mobile Operators (GSMA) estimates, for its part, a billion dollars the average daily value of transactions via mobile phones.
As a result, "the impact of innovations goes beyond the transformation of financial services uses" by "breaking down all real boundaries, providing the world with virtual and limitless spaces for expression. ", said the governor of the BCEAO.
A potential far from being restricted, mobile telephony is not the only case of use of innovations favorable to financial inclusion, he noted.
The major use of technological innovations lies primarily in payments, with the development of e-commerce, the deployment of new contactless payment and acceptance solutions. There is also the identification of populations by biometrics, a method that is spreading around the world.
With digital finance too, "remittances to developing countries have become, in recent years, tendentially larger, more stable and less volatile than other financial flows," according to the BCEAO.
Through discussion sessions, this high-level forum aims to review the links between technology and the emergence of new financial products adapted to the needs of the population.
It is part of the celebration of the Week of Inclusion organized simultaneously in the 8 member countries of UEMOA.
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