The MMU Leadership Forum took place on Thursday, a day after the conclusion of the GSMA mobile money Summit in Singapore.  Building on the success of last year’s event, this invitation-only, closed door forum allowed decision makers from financial regulatory authorities and mobile operators to come together, stimulating greater understanding and collaboration between all mobile money stakeholders globally.

During the first session, “How regulations address risk in non-bank e-money institutions”, Moderator Michael Tarazi, Senior Policy Specialist at  CGAP introduced various e-money frameworks that have been put in place in the last 12-18 months and discussed how the respective regulators defined e-money and how they addressed the risk of bank and non-banks issuing e-money.   He was joined by  a group of panellists including: Choong Mei Kuen, Deputy Director at Bank Negara Malaysia; Zahir Khoja, Executive Director at Roshan in Afghanistan; and Geodfrey Yiga, Deputy Director of Commercial Banking Supervision at Bank of Uganda who discussed the recent “wave” of e-money regulation that has been implemented globally based on a  proportionate risk framework.

Later, Claire Alexandre from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation moderated a panel on the importance of account opening and led a discussion on the rationale behind deferred KYC requirements for low value accounts, the experience of some jurisdictions and its significance for account opening at agents and cash merchants.  She was joined in the panel by Carlos Lopez-Moctezuma, President’s Chief of Staff at CNBV who presented Mexico’s new model of tiered KYC for account opening; and Nestor Espenilla, Deputy Governor at Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Paolo J. Baltao, President of G-Xchange; Jojo Malolos from SMART Money; and Pierre-Laurent Chatain from the World Bank who discussed the experience in the Philippines helping the audience understand how  deferred KYC for low risk accounts can facilitate account opening at the agent level.

Finally, Ahmed Dermish and Denise Dias from BFA led a table-based discussion around consumer protection, providing insights into how its mechanisms are essential components of large-scale mobile money deployments.  By focusing on pricing transparency and redress mechanisms, they encouraged both MNOs and regulators to discuss their concerns regarding the protection of customer in the context of remote account access and interfacing with agents.