COVID-19 impacts every one of us, transforming economies, healthcare and education. Our communities are forever changed, and it’s up to world leaders, organizations, governments and businesses to act quickly to help mitigate the negative impacts of this crisis and urgently attend to the needs of the most marginalized and affected communities.

As an organization that provides financial, health and education services to underserved women in Latin America, Pro Mujer is adapting. Our health and financial teams across the region are quickly developing new ways to meet the needs of our beneficiaries, while building short- and long-term strategies to ensure women continue to receive support, so they can stay healthy and address the economic impact of stay-at-home policies.

We are already seeing how inequalities become exacerbated as health and economic resources become strained. Projections are showing that poverty and unemployment will continue to increase as many businesses shut down. In Latin America, <a href="https://www.cepal.org/en/pressreleases/covid-19-will-have-grave-effects-global-economy-and-will-impact-countries-latin">unemployment could rise by 10 percentage points</a>, and we could see <a href="https://dialogochino.net/en/trade-investment/34547-coronavirus-takes-toll-on-latin-american-economies/">poverty expand</a> from 35 million to 220 million people.
<h2>Marcela’s Story</h2>
Marcela Castrillo is one of millions of women in the region who are being significantly impacted by this pandemic. As an owner of a small handicrafts manufacturer in Argentina, Marcela depends largely on sales to tourists who pass by public markets, fairs, and train stations. With the suspension of travel and a nationwide stay-at-home order in Argentina, she has lost her income.

Marcela, like so many other Pro Mujer women, are concerned as they struggle to find financial support from the government or elsewhere. Since 2008, Pro Mujer has provided Marcela with microloans to help her keep and grow her business. She and her family have also had access to basic health care at Pro Mujer’s clinics, including pediatric care for her children and gynecological care for her teen daughters.

“We understand that our health comes first. Without health, you can’t do anything. But it is really hard when you have to tell yourself that if you do not go out to work, you will not have food to put on the table. And if you go out, you could get really sick,” Marcela said. This is a recurring concern among low-income individuals across the region.

In cases like Marcela’s, our financial team is building short and long-term strategies to make sure our beneficiaries can provide for their families and do not lose their businesses. We are delaying as many loan payments as possible and reassessing our clients’ financial needs individually, a labor intensive but worthwhile process. Once mandatory lockdowns are over, our beneficiaries will also need capital to restart their businesses. Pro Mujer will be there to support them.
<h2>Accelerating a Digital Transformation</h2>
COVID-19 has had a direct impact on how we engage with our clients and patients. While Pro Mujer has been undergoing a process of digital transformation, the crisis has accelerated projects that allow us to serve our beneficiaries digitally. In Nicaragua, for example, we have ramped up our efforts to promote our digital wallet to facilitate payments among our financial services clients and to strengthen our financial support during the crisis.
<blockquote>We have ramped up our efforts to promote our digital wallet to facilitate payments.</blockquote>
Our health workers are using WhatsApp to connect with patients and provide virtual counseling sessions to answer any questions women might have about the virus or their overall health. We have already seen the spread of false information that preys on people’s levels of stress and anxiety, and we are seeing a disturbing upward trend in domestic violence and femicides during this time. This is why we have prepared our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YGfXk10SU">health staff</a> on how to provide relevant information to help our beneficiaries and their families cope with this pandemic, both physically and emotionally.

We are also putting additional resources into digitizing educational materials and fast-tracking initiatives – including trainings for our entrepreneurs on how to market and sell on Facebook – and digitizing material on health and wellbeing to engage our community through video and interactive content. Despite the fact that some of our clients – and a <a href="https://es.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/cuantas-personas-usuarias-de-internet-hay-en-america-latina/">huge portion</a> of the Latin American population – do not have access to the internet, we are seeing a clear willingness among our clients and patients to adopt digital channels to stay connected.
<h2>A Time for Learning, Creative Solutions and Dignity</h2>
When Bolivia went on lockdown, Benigna Quisbert, a 73-year-old Pro Mujer client, had to close down her clothing shop. Like Marcela, she was left with no income. Worried about how she was going to provide for her grandchildren and about the health crisis in her community, Benigna decided to use her skills to produce face masks. She was able to secure a contract with a public hospital in El Alto, the city where she lives, to make these masks for health workers.

All of us are learning how to navigate an entirely new environment. At Pro Mujer, we are taking this moment to act quickly and at the same time reflect on what has worked for us and what needs to change so that we can build a more resilient organization that can quickly adapt to women’s changing needs.

Today, more than ever, we are seeing the critical need to build systems and structures that guarantee human rights, including equal access to fundamental resources – like health care, education, and food – and systems that allow for gender equality.

Pro Mujer’s team understands this is also a great opportunity for organizations to look at different ways of thinking and doing, to explore new horizons and prioritize the delivery of services for underserved communities around the world, and to ensure they live with dignity.

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The Pandemic Will Not Deter Us

Argentina

Latin America and The Caribbean

Bolivia

Test of a Lifetime: COVID-19 and Financial Inclusion

Challenges and Crises

Enabling Environment

Blog Post

Sofia  Huizar

Camila  Montañez

Liliana Rojas

Lucia Pacheco

Sonja Kelly

Somen Saha

Brazil

Chile

Uruguay

Honduras

Financial Technology

Policy, Regulation and Government Initiatives

Agent Banking

Digital Financial Services

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<img class="alignright wp-image-24986" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/thumb_08961175df7c4694bc95b207ebf9a116.jpg" alt="" width="330" height="220" />

The following post was <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/assessing-quality-regulations-improving-financial-inclusion-eight-latin-american-countries">originally published</a> on the Center for Global Development's blog and has been republished with permission.

The most recent <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/globalfindex">World Bank</a> data on financial inclusion shows that by 2014, only 54 percent of the adult population in Latin America had an account at a financial institution. This compares to an average of 62 percent of adults worldwide and 70.5 percent for those countries with a similar level of income per capita (the region’s peers). In developed economies, 94 percent of adults have an account at a financial institution.

Many factors could be cited for the low ratios of financial inclusion in Latin America, but in a recent <a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Regulatory-Practices-for-Financial-Inclusion-in-Latin-America-vf_mod.pdf">paper</a> published at BBVA Research, that also came as a CGD <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/index-regulatory-practices-financial-inclusion-latin-america_0.pdf">working paper</a>, we focus on the potential role of financial regulation. We assessed and compared the quality of the policies and regulations that impinge on financial inclusion in eight Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay). Peru and Mexico came out on top, with what appear to be the best regulatory frameworks for promoting financial inclusion. But even in these top performers, there is room for improvement.


<h3>Identifying regulatory influences on financial inclusion</h3>
In our recent study, we identified three dimensions of regulatory practices and policies that can influence financial inclusion:
<ol>
 	<li>Enablers: regulatory practices that determine the overall quality of the financial environment where providers of financial services operate</li>
 	<li>Promoters: regulations that deal with specific types of market frictions and describe the rules of the game for the provision of specific financial products and services for low-income populations</li>
 	<li>Preventers: regulations that, often unintentionally, create obstacles for expanding the supply and demand for financial products and services</li>
</ol>
In total, we identified 11 regulatory practices across these three dimensions. The assessment of these policies relies on the construction of three indices of regulatory quality (one for each dimension), and 11 sub-indices (for the 11 regulatory practices that form these dimensions). Additionally, we constructed a non-regulatory sub-index for assessing governments’ efforts to promote financial literacy.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-24980" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/table-cgd.png" alt="" width="616" height="237" />

To form each of the sub-indices, we assessed a number of variables selected on the basis of internationally accepted standards and a vast review of the existing literature. For each variable, we assigned scores in a range from 0 to 2 (where 2 represents the highest level of quality for the variable). For obvious reasons, it is not possible to go into the specifics of each variable and each sub-index here (the detailed explanation can be found in the <a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/an-index-of-regulatory-practices-for-financial-inclusion-in-latin-america/">study</a>). However, there are two novelties about the construction of the sub-indices that are worth highlighting.

First, in constructing the sub-indices, we recognize that there may be interactions between variables that affect their whole impact on inclusion. Let’s take, for example, the sub-indices of simplified accounts or electronic money. Should regulatory constraints on fees and commissions charged by financial institutions to their customers for owing or using these products be assessed as detrimental or favorable for financial inclusion? The answer, as reflected in our index, is “it depends.” Setting no restrictions on fees and commissions to open and manage simplified or e-money accounts is desirable if the quality of competition policies for the financial sector is satisfactory. In other words, the recommendation to let financial institutions determine fees freely depends on the ability to prevent the emergence of monopoly powers through robust competition policies. In terms of our index, this means that to assess the quality of some Promoter components (simplified accounts and electronic money) we need to recognize their interaction with an Enabler component (competition policies).

A second interesting feature is that the index incorporates an interaction between some of the regulatory practices and other forms of government intervention that can increase the potential of those regulations. Continuing with the example of simplified accounts and electronic money, in the study we considered that the regulation governing the provision of these products is of a better quality if the government promotes their usage by individuals and small companies through additional efforts (such as depositing government transfers to low-income populations in these accounts) than if it stays aside. Finally, the amplifying effect of policies to enhance financial literacy on regulatory practices classified as Promoters is another example of the interactions between regulations and governmental interventions.
<h3>Which countries have the best regulatory frameworks for financial inclusion in Latin America?</h3>
The map below summarizes the results of our index of regulatory practices for financial inclusion in eight Latin American countries. The numbers represent the values of the overall index and of each of the three sub-indices (each ranging from 0 to 2, as mentioned above).

[caption id="attachment_24978" align="aligncenter" width="615"]<a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/rojas-suarez-pacheco-regulatory-figure1.png"><img class="wp-image-24978" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/rojas-suarez-pacheco-regulatory-figure1.png" alt="" width="615" /></a> (click to enlarge)[/caption]

As shown, all the countries have strengths and weaknesses in their regulatory frameworks. Peru appears to have the best regulatory framework, followed closely by Mexico. Obviously, some areas of Peruvian regulation could be enhanced, but in broad terms, the regulatory framework is robust and conducive to financial inclusion. Mexico, on the other hand, has more room to improve the quality of its regulatory framework, especially the regulations classified as Promoters. Still, the country might soon solve some of the deficiencies we identified in our study (for instance, the absence of a dedicated regulatory framework for electronic money). In fact, Mexico’s Congress is currently discussing a draft law that seeks to leverage the possibilities of financial technology (or fintech) to advance financial inclusion.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Argentina and Brazil have the lowest scores. Both present very low scores along the Preventers dimension as there are various elements in their regulatory framework (from financial transaction taxes to directed lending by the state) that might run counter to financial inclusion objectives. Thus, in these countries major changes to the regulatory framework are needed to achieve sustainable progress in financial inclusion.

The rest of the countries obtain modest results that also tend to be explained by very low scores in the Preventers index but more solid results in the Enablers and Promoters indices. The case of Colombia stands out in this last group: although the country is strong in the Promoters index, the existence of a financial transaction tax, the imposition of ceilings on interest rates, and directed lending practices generate multiple distortions and explain why Colombia’s overall score lags behind Peru and Mexico.
<h3>Does regulatory quality alone explain the financial inclusion gap?</h3>
The answer to this question is “no.” As discussed in the CGD report <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/CGD-financial-regulation-task-force-report-2016.pdf">Financial Regulations for Improving Financial Inclusion</a>, regulation is important for two main reasons: first, because the right regulatory framework is key to enable the private sector to adopt innovations in digital finance and encourage their use by low-income populations, and second, because policies to increase financial inclusion must be compatible with the traditional objectives of financial regulators. Thus, they should not undermine the stability and integrity of the financial system, while ensuring effective consumer protection.

It should not be a surprise, though, that regulation is not the only factor that determines a country’s success in advancing inclusion. Many other factors matter, including socioeconomic constraints, the macroeconomic environment, institutional quality, and specific characteristics of the financial system. In other words, having an enabling regulatory framework is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustainable progress in financial inclusion. This is the conclusion of an econometric study in <a href="http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=40368033">Rojas-Suarez (2016)</a> that shows that in Latin America, institutional factors matter most in explaining the financial inclusion gap.

That said, an appropriate regulatory framework is essential for financial inclusion. Thus, by signaling areas of strength and weakness in the regulatory practices of individual countries, the <a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/an-index-of-regulatory-practices-for-financial-inclusion-in-latin-america/">index of regulatory practices for financial inclusion</a> is meant to support the efforts of policymakers in the region with a mandate to improve financial inclusion. Therefore, beyond the specific country scores, what is truly useful from this index is the opportunity it provides in motivating discussion among market participants, policymakers, and interested researchers, as it already has at the <a href="http://www.lacea.org/portal/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=featured&amp;Itemid=101">Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association</a> meeting in Buenos Aires last November. Hopefully, these types of conversations will serve to guide regulatory reforms.

Liliana Rojas-Suarez is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

Lucía Pacheco is an economist at BBVA Research.

Image credit: Accion

Have you read?

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/11/13/how-smart-campaign-research-is-influencing-client-protection-policy-in-peru/">How Smart Campaign Research Is Influencing Client Protection Policy in Peru</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/12/08/sadc-needs-a-regionally-accepted-digital-financial-id-and-it-is-feasible-to-contemplate/">SADC Needs a Regionally-Accepted Digital Financial ID - And It Is Feasible to Contemplate</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/12/15/net-neutrality-ruling-could-block-your-bank/">Net Neutrality Ruling Could Block Your Bank</a>

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&nbsp;

Assessing the Quality of Regulations for Improving Financial Inclusion in Eight Latin American Countries

A Spanish-language version of this post immediately follows the English-language version.

Financial institutions of all sizes around the world are joining the digital revolution. In our work and research at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Inter-American Development Bank we have seen some best cases of institutions shifting toward digital as well as some failures. At the end of this month we’ll be discussing strategies to pursue digital innovation as part of the <a href="http://www.fomin-events.com/foromic/2017/web/">Foromic</a> in Buenos Aires. (Join us for our session on Tuesday, October 31st at 11:15 am!) In the meantime, for institutions that want to start down the path of digital innovation, here are a few of our top strategy suggestions.

1. Make sure you actually want to digitize. Some institutions are digitizing because they have undertaken extensive research on what value digitization will bring to their institution. These analyses involve things like cost reduction, increased access, increased efficiency, better record-keeping, or all of the above. But others are digitizing, more or less, because they see their peers doing it. Remember when your mom told you not to jump off a bridge just because everyone else was? The same applies here. There are some institutions that will do just fine without pursuing a full digital strategy right now. And that is ok. A good rule of thumb here is you’re likely better off not digitizing at all if you are only going to “phone it in.”



2. Determine what cannot be digitized. Forthcoming research from CFI <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/cfi-fellows-program/782">finds</a> that even in a digital age there are particular touchpoints and processes that customers require real human beings for. For example, when something goes wrong, and it will, customers want to interact with a person to get the issue resolved. Have you ever called a customer service line and been frustrated that the chatbot or touchtone phone menu is not understanding, or even answering, your question? Financial services users in emerging markets feel the same way about specific points in their financial journeys. Find out what these look like for your customers and keep those human interactions sacred throughout the digitization process.

3. Ensure that digitization is a mandate from the top. If senior leadership is not pushing for digitization across the organization, it will likely not happen. For instance, we found in <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/CFI_IIF_FI_Fintech_Partnerships_Report_2017.07.pdf">CFI’s research</a> on partnerships between fintechs and financial institutions that ING requires all partnerships with fintechs to have a “sponsor” at the top – thus establishing buy-in at two levels of the institution to ensure the partnership receives the attention it needs to move to implementation. We see institutions like Bancolombia lean toward innovation when their CEOs get involved. And incidentally, Bancolombia’s president, Juan Carlos Mora Uribe, previously served as the banking group’s head of innovation. Such senior support signals that digitization is a priority for employees.

4. Build digitization into your key performance indicators. Moving toward digital systems, processes, and touchpoints simply cannot be one item in an institution’s long to-do list. It has to be built into performance metrics of individual employees and reported in key performance indicators to investors and the board. If digitization is a determinant of success or failure of the institution, it will happen. If it is a process that would be nice to have, the legacy systems and processes of the institutions have a higher likelihood of keeping it from success.

5. Build nimble, flexible, cross-departmental teams. For digital innovation to be successful, it must involve many different teams, from product development to risk and compliance to accounting to information and technology. Teams that work across these different departments, anticipating the needs of a variety of internal stakeholders, are more likely to lead successfully. DO NOT, under any circumstances, simply assign the responsibility of digitization to your IT department alone.

6. Hire the right people. The Group Executive Chairman of BBVA, Francisco González, was a programmer at one point in his career, and upon being named to his position began a process of digitizing the bank. With his background, González understands what the process of digitization entails. Having the right people to lead the process of digitization is critical to ensuring success. If your institution has no experience with digital systems, you probably need to do some hiring before beginning down the road of digitization.

7. Test innovation first on a small scale … safely. One of the biggest complaints that large institutions make about entering into partnerships centered on digitization is that such processes get stuck when they go through the approvals processes with different parts of the institution. A potential initiative might get stuck in the compliance group, or may not immediately plug into existing back-end systems, or may even get held hostage by a reticent board (see strategy #1). We see institutions like BBVA Bancomer creating “sandboxes” for innovation, insulating initiatives from a full approvals process if they can be built and tested under a particular risk threshold as previously determined by the financial institution. Find ways to test innovation and digital solutions this way, on a small scale, to better understand whether they are worth moving to large-scale implementation. IDB discusses such smaller-scale testing efforts in its <a href="https://www.fomin.org/en-us/Home/FOMINblog/Blogs/DetailsBlog/ArtMID/13858/ArticleID/12705/Banks-in-the-digital-eraDo-you-need-an-innovation-hub.aspx">recent blog post</a> on innovation hubs and sandboxes.

8. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Most financial institutions have moved toward digitization, so you are not alone! Financial services providers can hire consultants that specialize in digitization, can partner with another institution, or can join groups of like-minded institutions around the world and learn from them as part of industry associations. If you want to hear about how other institutions have digitized, again, you can <a href="http://www.foromic.org/">join our session at Foromic this year</a>.

9. Distinguish between your core systems and processes and peripheral systems and processes. Develop internally for the former, and partner for the later. There are systems and processes that are core to the identity of financial institutions that you’ll want to protect closely, keeping the process of digitization internal to the institution. For more peripheral systems and processes, however, you can innovate through partnerships, testing different models and seeing what works. This differentiation will be different for every financial institution, as some hold their customer relationships as core, others hold their banking technology as core, and still others hold their risk assessment methodologies as core. For the peripheral systems, however, there is more room for testing and innovating. But how to test several solutions in an affordable way? This is not an easy task. To fill this void, the <a href="http://www.iadb.org/en/about-us/about-the-inter-american-development-bank,5995.html">Inter-American Development Bank</a> through the <a href="http://www.fomin.org/">Multilateral Investment Fund</a> (MIF) has supported a program – <a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/03/10/finconecta-building-bridges-between-financial-institutions-and-fintechs/">Finconecta</a> - to precisely test integrations between selected fintechs from all over the world and financial institutions in the region via a virtual mass-API platform.

10. Don’t forget to bring your customers along with you. In the process of digitization, customers also experience a transition. In this transition, don’t forget to pay attention to the needs of customers, empowering them with the tools and resources they require to embrace the transition - or to opt out if they still want to use their services as they have. Consult specialists—either internal or external—who can think about and collect feedback on the customer journey to this end.

The process of digitization does—and should—look different for every financial institution. But we hope that as institutions pursue these kinds of digitization strategies, such transitions can be made thoughtfully and with the ultimate purpose of better, more affordable products in mind for consumers.

<hr />

<h1>10 maneras de organizarse para la innovación digital en servicios financieros</h1>
Instituciones financieras alrededor del mundo, y de todos los tamaños, se están uniendo a la revolución digital. En nuestro trabajo diario tanto del Centro para la Inclusión Financiera de Acción como del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo observamos casos de éxitos de instituciones que se orientan al mundo digital, pero también dificultades y fracasos. A finales de este mes estaremos discutiendo estrategias para impulsar la innovación digital como parte del <a href="http://www.fomin-events.com/foromic/2017/web/">Foromic</a> en Buenos Aires. (¡Únase a nosotros durante nuestra sesión el martes, 31 de octubre a las 11:15 am!). Mientras tanto, para las instituciones que quieren iniciar el camino de la innovación digital, aquí tenemos algunas sugerencias sobre las mejores estrategias para lograrlo:
1. Asegúrese de que realmente desea digitalizar. Muchas instituciones están digitalizando porque han llevado a cabo una extensa investigación sobre el valor que la digitalización le traerá a su institución. Estos análisis implican temas como la reducción de costos, mayor acceso, mayor eficiencia, mejor mantenimiento de registros, o todo lo anterior. Pero otras están digitalizando, en mayor o menor medida, porque ven a sus pares hacerlo. ¿Recuerdas cuando tu madre te dijo que no saltaras de un puente sólo porque todos los demás lo hacen? Lo mismo aplica aquí. Hay algunas instituciones que pueden operar muy bien sin buscar una estrategia digital extensiva en este momento. Y eso está bien. Una buena regla de oro en este caso es que es mejor que no digitalizar si sólo va a "hacer por hacer.”
2. Determine lo qué no puede ser digitalizado. En un <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/cfi-fellows-program/782">informe</a> del CFI de próxima publicación  ha encontrado que incluso en una era digital hay puntos de contacto y procesos específicos donde se requiere el contacto humano. Por ejemplo, cuando algo va mal, muchos clientes quieren interactuar con una persona para resolver el problema. ¿Alguna vez ha llamado a una línea de servicio al cliente y se ha sentido frustrado por el hecho de que el chatbot o el menú de tono de llamada no está entendiendo, o ni siquiera contestando, su pregunta? Los usuarios de servicios financieros en los mercados emergentes se sienten de la misma manera sobre ciertos aspectos de sus transacciones financieras. Averigüe los aspectos donde sus clientes valoran las interacciones humanas a lo largo del proceso de digitalización.
3. Consolide la digitalización como parte de una decisión de alto nivel. Si el liderazgo de alto nivel no está presionando para la digitalización en toda la organización, es probable que no suceda. Por ejemplo, en una <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/CFI_IIF_FI_Fintech_Partnerships_Report_2017.07.pdf">investigación del CFI</a> encontramos que las asociaciones entre instituciones financieras y fintechs en ING requerían un “patrocinador” en altos niveles gerenciales - estableciendo así compromiso en dos niveles de la institución para asegurar que la asociación reciba la atención necesaria pasar a la implementación. Vimos que instituciones como Bancolombia se inclinaron hacia la innovación cuando sus CEOs se involucraron. Incidentalmente, el presidente de Bancolombia, Juan Carlos Mora Uribe, se desempeñó anteriormente como jefe de innovación del grupo bancario. El apoyo de alto nivel indica que la digitalización es una prioridad para los empleados.
4. Incluya la digitalización en sus indicadores clave de rendimiento. El cambio hacia sistemas digitales, procesos y puntos de contacto no puede ser simplemente elementos en la larga lista de tareas pendientes de una institución. La digitalización tiene que ser incorporada en las métricas de desempeño de los empleados individuales y reportada en indicadores de desempeño clave para los inversionistas y el directorio. Si la digitalización es un determinante del éxito o fracaso de la institución, es más probable que suceda. Si se trata de un proceso que sería bueno tener, los sistemas y procesos previos de las instituciones tienen una mayor probabilidad de mantenerlo lejos del éxito.
5. Construya equipos ágiles, flexibles e interdepartamentales. Para que la innovación digital tenga éxito, debe implicar a muchos equipos diferentes, desde el desarrollo de productos hasta el riesgo y el cumplimiento, contabilidad y tecnologías de la información. Los equipos que trabajan en estos diferentes departamentos tienen más probabilidades de liderar con éxito, anticipando las necesidades de una variedad de partes interesadas internas. En ninguna circunstancia, asigne la responsabilidad de la digitalización a su departamento de tecnologías de la información únicamente.
6. Contrate a las personas adecuadas. El presidente ejecutivo del grupo de BBVA, Francisco González, fue programador en un momento de su carrera, y al obtener su cargo comenzó un proceso de digitalización del banco. Con sus antecedentes, González entendía lo que implicaba el proceso de digitalización. Tener a las personas adecuadas para dirigir el proceso de digitalización es fundamental para asegurar su éxito. Si su institución no tiene experiencia con los sistemas digitales, es probable que tenga que hacer algunas contrataciones antes de comenzar el camino hacia la digitalización.
7. Pruebe la innovación primero a pequeña escala ... con seguridad. Una de las quejas más grandes que tienen las grandes instituciones sobre la participación en asociaciones centradas en la digitalización es que tales procesos se quedan estancados cuando pasan por los procesos de aprobación de diferentes partes de la institución. Una iniciativa potencial puede quedar atrapada en el grupo de cumplimiento, o puede no conectarse de inmediato a los sistemas de back-end existentes, o incluso puede ser retenida por una junta reticente (ver estrategia # 1). Vemos a instituciones como BBVA Bancomer creando sandboxes  (“cajas de arena”) que son espacios para la innovación, aislando iniciativas de un proceso de aprobación total si estas pueden ser construidas y probadas bajo un umbral de riesgo previamente determinado por la institución financiera. Encuentre maneras de probar la innovación y las soluciones digitales de esta manera, en pequeña escala, para entender mejor si valen la pena para pasar a la implementación a gran escala. El BID discute estos esfuerzos de pruebas a menor escala en <a href="https://www.fomin.org/en-us/Home/FOMINblog/Blogs/DetailsBlog/ArtMID/13858/ArticleID/12705/Banks-in-the-digital-eraDo-you-need-an-innovation-hub.aspx">este blog sobre hubs de innovación</a> y sandboxes en los bancos.
8. No reinvente la rueda. La mayoría de las instituciones financieras ya se están moviendo hacia la digitalización ¡No están solos! Los proveedores de servicios financieros pueden contratar consultores que se especializan en la digitalización, pueden asociarse con otra institución o pueden unirse a grupos de instituciones afines en todo el mundo y aprender de ellos como parte de asociaciones de la industria. Si quieres conocer cómo otras instituciones se han digitalizado, otra vez, puedes unirte a <a href="http://www.foromic.org/">nuestra sesión en el Foromic este año</a>.
9. Distinga entre sistemas y procesos centrales y sistemas y procesos periféricos. Desarrolle internamente para el primero, y asóciese para el segundo. Hay sistemas y procesos que son fundamentales para la identidad de las instituciones financieras que usted querrá proteger de cerca, manteniendo el proceso de digitalización de manera interna a la institución. Sin embargo, para sistemas y procesos más periféricos, puede innovar a través de asociaciones, probar diferentes modelos y ver lo que funciona. Esto será diferente para cada institución financiera, ya que algunos mantienen sus relaciones con los clientes como procesos centrales, otros mantienen a su tecnología bancaria como central, y otros todavía tienen sus metodologías de evaluación de riesgos como proceso central. Para los sistemas periféricos, sin embargo, hay más espacio para probar e innovar. Pero, ¿Cómo probar varias soluciones de una manera asequible? Esta no es una tarea fácil. Para llenar este vacío, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, a través del Fondo Multilateral de Inversiones (FOMIN), ha apoyado el programa - <a href="http://www.finconecta.com/">Finconecta</a>- para probar con precisión las integraciones entre fintechs, que fueron seleccionadas de todo el mundo, y las instituciones financieras de la región a través de una plataforma masiva api.
10. No se olvide de traer a sus clientes en el viaje. En el proceso de digitalización, los clientes también experimentan una transición. En esta transición, no se olvide de prestar atención a las necesidades de sus clientes, brindándoles las herramientas y recursos que necesitan para asimilar la transición - o para optar por sus permanecer con los servicios de la manera actual. Consulte a especialistas-internos o externos- que puedan pensar y recopilar información sobre el viaje del cliente con este fin.
El proceso de digitalización es y debe de ser diferente para cada institución financiera. Pero esperamos que a medida que las instituciones busquen este tipo de estrategias de digitalización, tales transiciones pueden hacerse de manera inteligente y con el objetivo de lograr mejores productos que sean más asequibles para los consumidores.
Image credit: Accion

Have you read?

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/03/10/finconecta-building-bridges-between-financial-institutions-and-fintechs/">FINCONECTA: Building Bridges Between Financial Institutions and Fintechs</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2014/07/10/what-kinds-of-regulation-promote-the-development-of-microfinance-markets/">What Kinds of Regulation Promote the Development of Microfinance Markets?</a>

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10 Ways to Organize for Digital Innovation in Financial Services

&gt; Posted by Verónica Trujillo Tejada, Consultant, MIF/ Inter-American Development Bank

Building up a regulatory framework for the development of a microfinance market is a complex task. It requires taking into account a broad variety of topics as well as country specific needs and features. There are some internationally-applicable recommendations for the design of microfinance regulatory frameworks (<a href="http://www.cgap.org/publications/guide-regulation-and-supervision-microfinance">CGAP 2012</a>, <a href="http://publications.iadb.org/bitstream/handle/11319/4898/Gu%C3%ADa%20de%20Principios%20para%20una%20Efectiva%20Regulaci%C3%B3n%20y%20Supervisi%C3%B3n%20de%20las%20Operaciones%20de%20Microfinanzas.pdf?sequence=1">ASBA 2010</a>, and <a href="http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs175.pdf">Basel 2010</a>) but little is known about how different countries have implemented their guidelines or what the effects are of these rules in each market.

In the recently released paper “<a href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.2014.14.issue-4/bejeap-2013-0145/bejeap-2013-0145.xml">Microfinance Regulation and Market Development in Latin America</a>,” published by the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis &amp; Policy, we analyze the relationship between microfinance regulatory frameworks in 17 Latin American countries and the corresponding markets’ levels of development.

One way to characterize microfinance regulations is as either general or specific rules. The general rules are devoted to regulating typical financial system issues, while the specific rules target microfinance products or institutions. Two other regulation classifications are protection rules and promotion rules. Protection rules have the goal of preserving financial system stability or protecting the financial consumer, and promotion rules aim to favor the development of microfinance services or institutions by softening the restrictiveness of the overall regulatory framework.

We find a wide variety of regulatory designs in the Latin American region. Countries such as Chile and Uruguay, for example, stand out for their lack of microfinance specific rules; though their employment of general and protection rules give their regulatory frameworks a base upon which they could build microfinance specific regulation. Other countries such as Honduras, Brazil, and Argentina have included specific or promotion rules in their regulatory frameworks, however either their level of implementation of general and protection rules is below the average of the countries examined in the report, or their frameworks have addressed microcredit but not through the specific criteria the report analyzes.

The analysis between microfinance regulatory frameworks and the level of development of the corresponding markets - which incorporated the size of the microcredit portfolio, number of clients, operative and financial efficiency of institutions, among other variables - enabled us to draw the following conclusions:
<ol>
	<li>All four types of regulation rules – general, specific, protection, and promotion – are significantly and positively correlated with bigger microfinance markets.</li>
	<li>Rules specific for microfinance are related to better MFI financial and operational performance, and better market data.</li>
	<li>Both general and protection rules are significantly and positively correlated with better developed microfinance markets - specifically in terms of profitability, operational efficiency, and portfolio quality.</li>
	<li>The implementation of both specific and promotion rules shows a positive and significant correlation with bigger informal, rural, and microenterprises sectors.</li>
</ol>
So, which would be the elements to consider when designing regulatory frameworks to contribute to the development of a microfinance market?

Of course there is no one formula to apply across countries, as markets and contexts differ. And more analysis (as well as more industry data) is required. However the report indicates that analyzing whether a financial system’s regulation includes ample general and protection rules is crucial for the better development of the microfinance market, preserving stability and the well-being of its clients. Introducing specific rules on microfinance services and institutions, considering the particular features of microfinance activities, could very well support institutional solvency and the employment of adequate risk management procedures. And promotion rules should be considered as a mechanism to favor market development. Regulators must be open to evaluating new actors, technologies, and methodologies for the provision of microfinance services, considering the possibility of granting them individualized treatment - in some cases lowering the usual standards for a short period of time.

To learn more about the analysis and to access the full report, <a href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.ahead-of-print/bejeap-2013-0145/bejeap-2013-0145.xml?format=INT">click here</a>.

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<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2014/06/05/diagnostic-review-of-consumer-protection-in-pakistans-financial-sector/" target="_blank">Diagnostic Review of Consumer Protection in Pakistan's Financial Sector</a>

What Kinds of Regulation Promote the Development of Microfinance Markets?