Home Credit partnership builds AFI private sector expertise

Home Credit, a global consumer finance provider, has joined AFI’s public-private dialogue (PPD) platform as its new regional PPD partner, helping advance financial inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia through systematic knowledge sharing with financial policymakers and regulators across the region and beyond.

Financial literacy, consumer protection, the digitization of consumer finance, cross-border remittances and emerging risks of digital financial services are among the key high-interest areas of the initial one-year cooperation.

AFI’s PPD platform provides policymakers, regulators and the private sector with the opportunity to engage in frank and focused conversations at the global and regional levels, share technical expertise on key financial inclusion issues and encourage innovation.

Knowledge sharing with AFI members will benefit both policymakers and Home Credit by building greater awareness of new and emerging policy issues and amplifying efforts to scale up new technologies and approaches in AFI members’ jurisdictions.

Home Credit’s unique technical and operational expertise will enhance value in the context of:

• technical knowledge contributions to AFI’s PPD webinars, particularly for Europe and Asia, where opportunities and risks of emerging financial technologies are among the primary topics of discussion
• high-level discourse among leaders of AFI members and partner institutions
• capacity building for regulators
• private sector insights toward relevant AFI knowledge products
• AFI’s COVID-19 Policy Response Initiative
• AFI’s regional and global AFI events and activities

In its first active engagement with the network, Home Credit’s Jan Růžička and Karel Horak will share their experiences in financial education, electronic Know-Your-Customer and electronic identification with members of AFI’s Eastern Europe & Central Asia Policy Initiative (ECAPI) gathering for a series of virtual meetings on 14-15 October 2020.

ECAPI is the primary platform for AFI member institutions in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region to support and develop their financial inclusion policy and regulatory frameworks and to coordinate regional peer learning efforts. It aims to resolve regional challenges and elevate the voice of the EECA region on key financial inclusion policy issues.

For their part, ECAPI members have been proactively implementing measures to prop up the financial ecosystem amid the outbreak of COVID-19, including by accelerating the development of digital banking, from remote client onboarding to cashless payments.

A full breakdown of interventions across the region is available on AFI’s website through its COVID-19 Policy Response, which aims to deliver systematic, effective and coordinated policy responses to help members mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on financial inclusion policy implementation. It combines quick, needs-based, highly practical and high-impact interventions that enable the implementation of rapid response policies and regulations in highly affected countries and is structured to meet members’ needs in the short and medium term.

AFI often leverages the unique expertise of its PPD partners to enhance tailored capacity building activities for policymakers and regulators either at the regional or thematic level.

About Home Credit

Founded in 1997, Home Credit is a global consumer finance provider with operations in nine countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Southeast, as well as India and China. The company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, offers non-collateralized, purpose-driven loans, cash loans and revolving lending products both online and in partnering retail shops. It drives and broadens financial inclusion for unbanked populations and encourages economic development through supporting domestic consumption.

More information about HCGBV is available at https://www.homecredit.net/

About AFI

AFI is the world’s leading organization on financial inclusion policy and regulation. Roughly 100 member institutions make up the AFI network including central banks, ministries of finance and other financial regulators from over 80 developing and emerging countries. AFI works on empowering policymakers to increase access and usage of quality financial services for the underserved through formulation, implementation and global advocacy of sustainable and inclusive policies.

More information about AFI is available at www.afi-global.org