international studies hosts live coverage starting at 4:30 p.m. eastern on c-span 3, online at c-span.org or on the free c-span radio app. sunday on book tv, live coverage of the brooklyn book festival. starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern, msnbc host chris hayes discussing his book "a colony in a nation." law professor cheryl cashen, author of "loving: interracial intimacy in america and the threat to white supremacy." author and "new yorker" staff writer jelani cobb talks about free speech. national book award-nominated author kathy o'neill on her book "weapons of math destruction." journalist masha guessen on quill grace. watch our live coverage of the brooklyn book festival on sunday, starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2's "book tv."

next, a look at how digital technologies have impacted financial inclusion in the u.s. and abroad. researchers at the brookings institution spoke about the data followed by a panel on the challenges that still exist. this is just under 90 minutes. >> good morning. i'm gerald west, vice president of government stud sxwriz director of the center for technology innovation at the brookings institution. and i would like to welcome you to our forum on financial inclusion. and we are webcasting this event live. so we'd like to welcome our viewe viewers. and also those of you who have tuned in via c-span. for those of you who are wishing to post comments, during the forum we have set up a twitter feed at #financialinclusion. that's #financialinclusion. so you're welcome to make any comments that you would like. so there are nearly 2 billion adults globally who do not have

bank accounts. this makes it very difficult to access financial services, pay bills, or transfer money to relatives. in addition, it is hard in those circumstances to be an entrepreneur when you are outside the formal financial system. it's difficult to gain access to capital or form a business when you lack basic financial services. but the good news is that many nations have made commitments to expanding financial services for the poor. they understand that financial inclusion is vital to economic development and social inclusion. and so as a result they are developing financial inclusion policies and implementing a new framework that encourages inclusion. so today ryan lewis, john villasenor, and myself are launching our third annual brookings scorecard measuring progress on financial access and usage with the support of the bill and melinda gates foundation. we've embarked on a three-year

study of inclusion in 26 developing countries. the short summary is that we've seen progress on financial services in many places. there are efforts to help marginalize populations. and this is happening through mobile money and digital financial services. as part of our research we got detailed suggestions from every country. we've also talked with many leaders in the ngo community who are active on financial inclusion and we're grateful for their sxurpt their help along the way. to give you a more detailed sense of the highlights of our study my colleague robin lewis will summarize the key findings. rob zinn a research analyst and a social fellow at brookings with our center for technology innovation. so with that i will turn it over to robin.

>> good morning. thank you to darryl for those remarks. and our sincere thanks to all of you for joining us this morning. either here at brookings or via live'llstream. we are very grateful for your interest in the project, and i'm looking forward to providing a brief overview of our approach and key findings before we turn it over to the panel discussion. so first i'd like to start with a brief overview of our project. the financial and digital inclusion project was launched in the summer of 2014. the purpose of the project is to provide policy makers, private sector representatives, non-governmental organizations and the general public with information that can help improve financial inclusion in the focus countries and around the world. but why does financial inclusion matter? at the individual level

financial inclusion matters because it provides pathways for people to improve their financial health, which contributes to their overall well-being. beyond that it is a key ingredient in advancing sustainable development goals such as poverty reduction and gender equality. to support our overall objective, over the past three years we have selected a series of politically, economically, and geographically diverse countries and we have evaluated their progress toward financial inclusion through a series of annual reports as well as conversations with diverse groups of experts. so let's talk briefly about the reports that we are launching today. this is the third annual afdip reports. and as with the first two reports, we examined access to usage of formal financial services across diverse country contacts. so when i say normal financial services, we primarily focused on basic services since these

are often entry points to the formal financial system including savings accounts and government to person transfers. for the 2017 report we have distilled and updated the country profiles that we featured in 2015 and 2016. and in addition to these selected financial inclusion highlights and recent updates we have included some recommendations regarding key next steps for examining financial inclusion. given the scope of our sample and the rapidly evolving nature of the issue of financial inclusion around the world these lists are not exhaustive but we do believe they capture an important snapshot of key development and opportunities for future growth. so moving to a quick scorecard interview as gerald mentioned, one of the components of our report informed by our research on each country's landscape is a scorecard tool. to develop the scorecard we

identified four dimensions of financial inclusion including country commitment, regulatory environment, and the adoption of formal financial services. so in terms of our country sample, we maintain the same list as in the previous year in which we added five new countries to diversify our sample. these countries included the dominican republic, egypt, el salvador, haiti, and vietnam. so we will dive into the dimension level findings very shortly, but for the moment here is our preview of the 2017 afdip scorecard. as you can see, the top scoring countries are generally distributed across latin america and sub-saharan africa. although countries in other regions including the philippines also demonstrated strong performances as well. for the third year in a row kenya received the top place on our scorecard, in part due to its robust commitment to advancing financial inclusion as

well as widespread adoption of mobile money services. with that said, a number of other top scoring countries including several in latin america have experienced lower levels of mobile money adoption to date but often have robust take-up of innovative card-based services as well as non-traditional access points such as banking correspondence. we think this finding should be very encouraging to the financial inclusion community because it demonstrates that countries with different political, economic, and geographic environments can effectively pursue different pathways for advancing financial inclusion. so to provide a better sense of what factors inform these scores, we'll briefly walk through some of the indicators across the four dimensions before we explore our findings. for example, country commitment indicators include the existence of comprehensive national financial inclusion strategies as well as specific dpinl inclusion protection frameworks.

excuse me, consumer protection frameworks. so these indicators help give us the sense of whether countries are willing to work collaboratively across sectors to make engagement to -- engagement with formal financial services a priority. moving to mobile capacity, we measured this because it includes indicators related to mobile infrastructure as well as the number and type of mobile money services that are offered. now, while digital financial inclusion services extend far beyond mobile money, these offerings can provide a very convenient, affordable platform for those who are typically underserved to access financial services. moving briefly to regulatory environments. we look at whether regulations, policies or other guidance concerning electronic money and other digital financial services have been issued. we also look at issues such as

mobile platform interoperability, which basically looks into whether customers of one service can easily send money to customers of another mobile money service. finally we focused on account adoption with both more traditional financial service providers as well as mobile money priefrtds across underserved groups in particular. these groups may include lower income adults as well as women. all the daya is from the world bank's global data base and we look forward to updating the data as the new data is released. moving to the key findings, the first country commitment to mention and touch on a few examples of countries' progress. for example, mexico increased its overall score by five percentage points this year to join the top five scoring countries. a couple of the changes that prompted this increase include that in june of 2017 the

national council on financial inclusion released the national financial inclusion plan. the government of mexico also joined the united nations-based better than cash alliance. moving to mobile capacity, el salvador is an example of a country that boosted its score by five percentage points over the last year, partly by increasing adoption of smartphones which can provide a more convenient and accessible way for individuals to access mobile financial services. moving to regulatory environments, countries from across all of our major regions had strong performances on this component of the scorecard including peru, the philippines, rwan rwanda, and india, which all received the highest scores possible under the regulatory environment dimension. for example, in addition to promoting mobile money interon rahability india has licensed several entities as payment

banks which effectively is hoped to increase financial access points for underserved individuals. next let's move to our adoption findings. the data and metrics on the adoption of traditional and financial services are existent from last year. and so among the new afdip countries added in 2016 which received the highest adoption score among those new countries. now let's turn to some of the key findings and calls to action in this year's report. so across our afdip countries one encouraging finding is there's been considerable growth, recognition that financial inclusion is not only important for individuals of welfare but it can also contribute to macro economic growth and sustainable development goals including the ones i mentioned previously. one interesting data point on this front is that as of this

year all of the countries in our sample are members of financial inclusion-oriented groups or networks. while membership in these groups is important and valuable. we also need concrete steps to emerge from their engagement. this is where infrastructure investment and the regulatory xhoens of this scorecard come into play. in addition, we also need consistent detailed data to track progress toward these goals. one example of something thaen ables countries to do nas the alliance for financial inclusion new data portal which is a helpful platform and we hope more countries will take the opportunity to include timely detailed data that is available for public consumption in order to help with knowledge, sharing, and accountability. moving to our next key finding, syntec, which is essentially the

intersection of finance and technology, provides 2re78ds opportunity to accelerate progress toward financial inclusion. so basically, syntac involves the innovative use of technology to both design and deliver financial services on products. and if that sounds like a really broad catchall term, that's because it is. but this can help enhance the accessibility and the utility of financial services for consumers. and render the deployment of these services more cost effective for providers. so for example, in a report bb vancoma is working with a chilean bank to extend credit to individuals who may not have a typical credit history that they have established. we're excited about these kinds of developments because they not only enable customers to access financial services but they can

also help it become more accessible for individuals to use these services and intuitive. so how are some countries taking synt krachlt into account? one example is in indonesia where as of august 2016 the financial services authority provided an outline of guidelines for the local syntac industry. additionally, in south africa syntac is increasingly pref sxlent a syntac regulatory framework is expected to form the financial institutions bill in 2017. >> finally, we encourage companies to amplify investments in cybersecurity efforts and knowledge sharing in order to fully reap the benefits of financial services innovation. so with the proliferation of digital technologies boundaries are blurring across traditional financial service providers and as well as tech start-ups and other groups. so while many of these companies

are very animal sxbl cost effective effective he they may also not have the infrastructure, resources or experience to ensure the services they provide are safe and secure. with that said of course banks are not exempt from this. particularly when they have outdated or centralized systems. so in a conversation with many stakeholders that we had in february of this year, one suggestion that emerged was from policy makers as well as financial service providers to work with technical experts to essentially provide us options to enhance cybersecurity and provide technical assistance for implementi ining those solution. moving forward we look forward to hearing from all of you regarding this year's report and scorecard as well as the 2015 and 2016 report. and we will continue our efforts

to facilitate dialogue regarding important financial inclusion developments and the outcomes of the scorecard. we have an adjustment up here. active comments at brookings.edu where we welcome your feedback. and now thank you for listening to the presentation. and i would like to invite our moderator john villasenor as well as our distinguished panelists to the stage to share their perspectives on financial inclusion. [ applause ]

>> okay. thank you very much to darryl west and robin lewis for setting the stage here. and thanks to all of you for taking time out of what i'm sure is a very busy schedule to help us with the dialogue on this really important topic. so the organization for the remaining portion of the program is i will introduce our two panelists and i will ask a series of questions and we'll hear their perspectives until approximately 11:00 and then we'll open it up to questions that@exz) may have and aim to close things up no longer than 11:30. so with that as sort of agenda setting let me briefly introduce our panelists. immediately to my left is camille busette. she is director of the brookings race, prosperity and inclusion

initiative and a senior fellow in government studies and she also has piemts here at brookings in the economic studies and metropolitan policy programs. camille has dedicated her career to expanding financial opportunities for low-income populations. she came to brookings from c-gap, the consultative group to assist poor where she served as the organization's lead financial sector specialist. previously she worked for the consumer financial protection bureau, the u.s. government financial services regulator where she served as the agency's nominal head of the office of financial education. and then to her left we have diego molano. diego is an international consultant in the area of digital transformation of companies and government. he was minister of information and communications technologies through the ackerman ict of colombia. from 2010 to 2015. and during his sten yoour colombia expanded all the elements of the digital ecosystem, not only infrastructure but also services, applications and

users. internet coverage extended to rural areas. fiberon the sxikz high-speed networks expanded to all municipalities, even those in the middle of the amazon. everywhere community with one more than 100 -- transformed with ict increasing their availability, reach and efficiency. so we're very privileged to have these two panelists with us. i'm going to start off with an initial question that i'll direct to camille and then i'll have a question for you, diego, and follow with some more. so for camille, as mentioned a moment ago, you are the director of the race, prosperity and inclusion initiative here at brookings. could you briefly explain why financial inclusion matters for traditionally marginalized communities including lowin come individuals and communities of color? >> sure. thanks for the question. and i'm really, really happy to be here discussion financial inclusion not only globally but certainly domestically. i think a lot of people are unaware of the fact that here in

the u.s. we have 10 million people who are unbanked and another 25 million who are underbanked, meaning they really don't have access to the full suite of financial services and products. and what that means here is a couple of things. just generally not having access to financial services makes it very difficult to save money, obviously, and to be prepared for emergencies but also makes it very difficult to start investing and creating a foundation for wealth creation. and so when we don't have that, particularly in the united states, where leverage is really important to building wealth and particularly important to transferring intergenerational wealth, then not having the services and not being included in the formal financial system makes it very difficult to make strides. and you see that here in the u.s. because a lot of the people

who are not formally banked tend to be people of color in communities of color. and in the u.s. we have a very large racial income gap as well as wealth gap. and some of that is attributable to the fact we do not include a lot of african-americans, latinos and others in the financial system. so give you a sense of that in the u.s. for the median wealth accumulated by white households is $111,000 and for african-american households it's 7,000. so that gives you an idea of just the disparity and why it's so important to have folks included in the formal financial system. >> thank you very much. diego, given your expertise and experience in ict, can you share some examples of ways you have seen or expect to see digital technology transforming the

financial services sector in colombia? >> thank you so much for the invite today here at brookings. you know, as camille was saying we have many, many, many challenges in terms of financial inclusion everywhere in the world. one of the main ones is infrastructure. how do you get banks to everybody? and through technology that's the solution. i'm sure everybody knows the example in africa of the many around the world moving into that direction. but having access to technology is not enough. i mean, we are proving that in most countries. for example, in latin america just around 50% of people are internet users. although more than 85% of people

are already covered by networks, by goldman -- networks. why? because there is no applications for them. when you ask them why you use internet, they answer it is useless for me, it doesn't change my life. so basically, we have to work not only to bring more infrastructure but also in developing more solutions that -- and that's part of what the financial sector is doing. so the financial sector is starting to use this technology, of course initially for payments and then some financial services but not only that. the future of that is huge. digital identification of people. the impact of those in poverty of digital i.d. is huge. there is a huge initiative by the world bank on that. how you make sure that people have an i.d.

if you see today the financial sector it's the one that has the power to create i.d. platforms for everybody. secondly, land registry. you know, most of the credit given in the whole world is based on land registries. so now the financial sector has the power to move that to digital and help people to be able to get credit easier. instead of going to old traditional paper, state-owned registries, the banking service can also move to detailed registries and transform completely the way credit is given today. >> thank you very much for both of your interesting perspectives the there. next question relates to the united states. as robin mentioned this is the

third year. our project is specifically looking at a set of countries robin alluded to a few minutes ago. but as camille reminded us there's a very significant challenge in the united states depending on how you measure it, some number of tens of millions of people either excluded from or at the margins of the or at the margins of the financial system. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac