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SOUTH AFRICA: At a panel discussion in Johannesburg, Tim Adams, President and CEO of the Institute for International Finance, led a discussion with Sim Tshabalala, CEO, Standard Bank; Daniel Monehin, Division President, sub-Saharan Africa MasterCard; Boniface Mungania, Senior Manager-Business Development, Financial Services Division, Safaricom; and Matu Mugo, Assistant Director, Bank Supervision, Central Bank of Kenya. Adams asked, “What are the largest gaps in pursuing financial inclusion by 2020?” Tshabalala responded, “Banks face an existential crisis. Unless they deal adequately with the customer experience … they will get disintermediated by the fintechs, and the fintechs will do so in a manner that is akin to death by a thousand cuts.” He emphasized the opportunity, therefore, that banks have to either partner with fintechs or to make low-cost, low-value payments part of their core business. Standard Bank is actively working with fintech companies to leverage their strengths. Watch the video to see more responses to Adams’ question about gaps.
INDIA: MicroPension Foundation and German development agency GIZ co-hosted a roundtable on delivering social security solutions to the poor. Respondents from the private sector and NGOs emphasized the importance of partnerships among government institutions and between government institutions and pension aggregators to avoid duplication of efforts as India improves its pension system. Gautam Bhardwarj, the Director of MicroPension Foundation, stated, “While most of the pieces of the ecosystem exist, they are still disaggregated to a large extent. Using good technology, it is feasible to integrate the ecosystem pieces that will help pension reforms in India to succeed.”