Ethical Payments Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to seeking practical ways to equalise opportunities and build self-sufficiency for regions with poor access to financial inclusion and freedom from exploitation.
Practicality is an important consideration in this aim. Idealism has little chance of overcoming historic barriers unless it's backed by realism and the understanding that we can't cure the world overnight.
Foreign aid to emerging countries is, at best, a temporary fix for an ongoing problem. That’s not to decry the admirable efforts of aid organisations, but charitable support has to go hand in hand with a strategy towards self-sufficiency. Sadly, global financial restrictions make such strategies so difficult as to be near-impossible.
Our work focuses on re-opening financially isolated regions so that they can trade internationally. It’s a complex task, given that many of the affected countries are also cursed by corruption, illegal trades and terrorism.
Practical solutions do exist, and new technologies are opening up an increasing armoury of tools to allow the established world to trade safely with hard-working people who need little more than the opportunity to contribute to global prosperity and inclusion. It's the Foundation's task to provide an impartial source of knowledge and guidance to help companies, banks, regulators and governments to nurture equality and opportunity across the globe.
While writing an article for March's ATTIC Magazine, I was reminded of two conferences I worked on in the Netherlands and Costa Rica. They were for Reckitt Benckiser, the company behind familiar names like Dettol and Harpic. RB has origins in India, so it's not surprising that the sub-continent has attracted its attention. My article, like most that I write, is about the importance of looking beyond our individual specialisms to the wider requirements of success for our aims. RB's work on improving sanitation in India took it to unexpected areas, all of which they embraced to outcomes that all should applaud.
Reckitt Benckiser set up its first World Toilet College in Rishikesh in 2016. Initially it set out to provide access to modern sanitation, as well as work topportunities for women by training female masons to build them. This brought to light
Money service bureaux continue to close as banks move to clean their portfolios by simply deleting business that doesn't meet their tightening risk appetites. This may play well for shareholders and risk officers, but does the cost justify the benefit? It can't be denied that some MSBs have been used as money-laundering vehicles, as evidenced by the joint crackdown by HMRC, the FCA and Metropolitan Police in September 2019. But the resulting bank withdrawal from the sector, which may have closed down 50% of the UK's bureaux, has much in common with babies and bathwater.
An MSB closure typically puts five to ten people out of work. That's not a number that will blip any unemployment graphs, but multiply it by the number of MSB closures and we start to see a far bigger effect. Since 2015, Barclays has closed 65% of its MSB accounts.
The
The Financial Inclusion Forum hosted a highly stimulating event last night, at which we learned more about what digital financial services are doing for refugees and other forcibly displaced populations. As is so often the case, the unintended consequences revealed that we don't always know what we think we know. Who could predict that terrorists might kill people simply because of a certain financial assistance app on their phone? Yet that app, provided for the most benign and philanthropic of reasons, was taken as evidence of the victim's status as a lackey of the hated west.
My co-director, Tory Batten, and I attended to make new contacts and understand better the role of safe, affordable payment channels in disadvantaged groups. both of those boxes receive multiple ticks.
It's greatly encouraging to learn that the digital expansion
Today, 5.1 billion people own a mobile phone. Compared to a world population of a little over 7 billion, that suggests that roughly two-thirds of people are part of the app revolution. GSMA, the organisation that represents the interests of mobile operators, predicts that that figure will grow to 71% by 2025. Of those, nearly 80% will be smartphones. Time for smiles and handshakes all round, as we congratulate ourselves on the financial inclusivity of a new world of digital transactions. But there are victims hidden in these encouraging numbers. And, given that we're talking about billions of people, even a small percentage of exclusion can equate to exclusion and suffering on a massive scale.
Today's article pivots on an invitation to companies, particularly fintechs, to tell us of their initiatives to bring opportunity to everyone, not just the fortunate
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