Representatives from Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (BCEAO, or Central Bank of West African States) visited Kenya and the Philippines on an AFI sponsored knowledge exchange to learn about mobile financial services (and other financial inclusion issues) to inform a proposed revision to the BCEAO’s E-money framework.

Six policy makers representing different departments in the BCEAO were led by mission head Bwaki Kwassi, Assistant Director of the Financial Stability Department. The delegation used this opportunity to understand the entire ecosystem of mobile financial services in the two countries by visiting both public and prívate institutions involved in e-money services.

First arriving in Kenya, Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) provided their National Payments Systems Team and Banking Supervision Team to acquaint the delegation with the bank’s vision for e-money and the policies necessary to enable it. This was complimented by private provider Safaricom (M-Pesa) who taught the delegation about their use of distributors and agents. The CBK also provided one of the highlights of the trip when they took the delegation onto the streets of Nairobi to interact and learn firsthand from customers and agents utilizing mobile financial services.

On the Philippines visit, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) arranged a plethora of meetings with five of their staff groups involved with financial inclusion, led by the Inclusive Finance Advocacy Staff. The meetings focused on e-money issuance concerning supervision and engaging with the private sector.

On the private sector front, the group learned about the business case for mobile money from two telecom companies, SMART and Globe Exchange (G-Xchange) who stressed the importance of the BSP as a progressive regulator and their productive dialogue with industry. A field trip to GM Bank outside of Manila afforded the opportunity to learn about the GCASH platform was being used to increase the outreach of the rural bank’s services.

The three-way learning allowed the dynamic and analytical BCEAO delegation to compare the cases of Kenya and the Philippines, while deciding what actions would best suit West Africa. This allowed the delegates a realistic view of successful financial inclusion at work and to envision how mobile financial services could take-off at home.

The BCEAO is the central bank of the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine or West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) which represents eight countries.