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I think in today's modern world, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to
carry only cash and have only cash.
There are significant sums of money flowing from governments in development
organizations in the form of
distribution of benefits. If we were to transition these programs to
distributing these benefits and form of electronic payment
we have the opportunity to bring this population into the financial mainstream.
We know that electronic transfers work
when those payments go to banks people save
It might only be fifty cents it might only be a dollar
but they save the people take those savings and build businesses.
But also for corporations
there are many businesses that work with communities that are hard to reach through the
traditional banking system so if you think of those who are buying from small farmers
and produces in rural areas
mobile banking will allow them to make payments electronically and
instantly.
In parts of Afghanistan
we've seen in shifts to electronic payments can actually help reduce fraud
and waste and thereby improve the actual salaries that afghan police
officers receive. If you look at the experiences in Haiti after
the earthquake electronic vouchers and mobile money
were used to get payments to people
quickly
people who received electronic transfers
got their resources three days ahead of others.
The benefits of shifting to electronic payments
are multiple, they decrease costs of the
transactions it also promotes transparency and accountability
it also promotes transparency and accountability in the flow of capital
and it's also a safer way
for recipients to access money.
To transition from cash to electronic
requires a lot of technical support coordination amongst many government
agencies and the banking infrastructure and the mobile money infrastructure working
together and make sure that this happens.
These kinds of technological transformations don't happen easily
for these cash transfers to happen the backbone has to exist.
In many parts of the world where economies are developing,
and populations are in the greatest areas of need
electronic payments are not migrating fast enough
because you are not seeing the right blend of government, NGO and private
industry partnership.
The Better than Cash Alliance is a partnership
between governments,
non-governmental organizations businesses
who believe that creating an electronic financial services infrastructure for the poor can greatly improve their lives.
We hope the alliance will help amplify
the opportunity that's there
for many many more people to be reached though formal
access to financial services.
The Better Than Cash Alliance will offer technological assistance. There will also
be a system
peer-to-peer learnings where governments who have
already transited to electronic transfers will bring their knowledge and
experience to the governments who are starting the process.
Eventually the transition from cash to electronic payments will have massive
social impact.
If we can
commit to moving our payments
onto these types of more modern systems
we can really be he'd tip in the arrow,
helping an entire industry shift the way it does its work.
We can start to help
billions of people move outside of extreme poverty.