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IPFS News Link • Blockchain

Financial Inclusion, Digital Identity and the White House

• bravenewcoin.com

Just to mop up the final discussions at the White House FinTech summit, there was a fourth panel on financial inclusion.  This panel comprised, from left to right:

Gayle Smith, Administrator, USAID; Jo Ann Barefoot, Senior Fellow, Mossovar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Greta Bull, CEO, CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor); Ryan Falvey, Managing Director, Financial Solutions Lab, Center for Financial Services Innovation; Franz Paasche, VP, Corporate Affairs and Communications, PayPal; and Vikas Raj, Director of Investments, Accion Ventures Lab

This was also an interesting panel with Franz from PayPal noting that "the best way to shut down corruption is to digitalise cash".  This is so true.  Vikas built on this by recognising that mobile services like Easypaisa in Pakistan and M-Paisa in Afghanistan move money straight from government accounts to the account of the target user.  This is a very powerful driver as the user is in control and the middleman which, in several economies is a corruptive influence, is avoided or ignored.  That is a key.  As Greta noted making "customers feel empowered and in control is a key, which is what drove M-Pesa" in Kenya.

The panel went on to talk about blockchain for identity. 


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