ELECTRONIC & DIGITAL FINANCIAL SERVICES PROJECT IN AZERBAIJAN AND CENTRAL ASIA

Expanding financial inclusion in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan

Finance and Markets Global Practice (F&M GP) in Europe and Central Asia is pleased to present you a project in implementing of Electronic & Digital Financial Services in Azerbaijan and Central Asia in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. The project implementation period is 4 years. The project’s main objective is to increase of financial penetration and expand financial inclusion of the population in the project countries.

The most frequent type of financial service used by people at large is payment services. Payments are typically an entry product to access other finacnial services such as savings, credit and insurance. Hence, improving access to payment services is an important determinant in achieving universal access to financial services. The first step in accessing formal payment services is to have a payment/transactional account with an institution licensed to offer such services. This is where banks in many countries with their physical branch network fail to reach low income population and those living distant areas. Main barriers to access and use this service are (i) high fees and low income, (ii) indirect costs (e.g. cost and time to travel to the nearest branch); (iii) poor product design that doesn not meet the users needs; (iv) low level of financial literacy of potential customers. Global experience shows that electronic and mobile payment solutions can address these constrains and such solutions are relevant to the Project countries.

Significant improvements in mobile phone and card payment technology are resulting in new, innovative business models that deliver financial services at lower prices to the distant areas of the countries. Mobile and other technology enabled financial services in combination with agent networks and other new access channels such as payment kiosks, so called alternative delivery channels (ADC), are key innovations that can enable financial services providers to better reach and serve the previously uncovered population, which is joining the growing mass market. Together, technology enabled access to financial services can be referred to as e-financial services, hereafter in this document, e-services. E-services include the (1) full range of e-money products (prepaid cards, m-money, internet-money), (2) internet access to banking services (internet-banking), and (3) mobile access to bank services (m-banking), as well as (4) m- payments, internet payments and (5) other electronical enabled financial services that have yet to be introduced.

Universal finance access is low in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, due to a number of factors. The limited capacity and scale of the financial sectors is one of the key factors. The preference of financial institutions for urban centers creates a rural/urban imbalance, made more pronounced by challenging topography.

E-services, using m-banking as one of channels, also provides a powerful tool for accumulating remittances flow into the formal financial sector. This is highly relevant for such countries as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as in 2014, the remittances contributed impressive 52% of GDP in Tajikistan, 32% in Kyrgyzstan) and Azerbaijan for inbound and outbound remittance. E-financial services (incl. m-money) will help reducing/eliminating additional transaction costs by transferring remittances from an e-wallet to a saving account.

These remittance flows, however, do not remain in the form of saving in formal financial sector. One of the factors influencing remittals cash out is immediate needs for consumption, which is beyond the influence of tools for financial inclusion.

Even in markets were the regulatory environment is conducive, financial institutions have been reluctant to develop ADC. The main reasons are: (i) banks lack the core competencies to create and leverage ADC, hence have to bring in expertise from outside the traditional banking industry; (ii) the business case for ADCs has not been widely proven; (iii) high costs of channel development with uncertain returns and channels breaking even in three to five years; and (iv) a lack of capacity to assess the opportunity, develop a go to market strategy, an agent network, and design and deployed products for base of the pyramid using ADC. The small size of the Central Asian and Azerbaijan economies present specific challenges necessitating industry cooperation in a generally competitive market.

The WBG Electronic & Digital Financial Services project, through introduction e-services (incl. m- money products), will strive to create transformational effect with accessibility to financial services in the project countries, providing the new tools to customers who cannot not be reached profitably through traditional branch-based financial services. The objective of the proposed project is to foster the financial inclusion of population into the formal financial systems through the establishment of effective and sustainable e-service providers in project countries. The project’s main targets are: (a) 700,000 registered users; (b) networks of 2,400 agents; and (c) US$14 million in value of non-cash financial transactions 2 years after the project completion.

The Project will be implemented over a 48 months period and will have three distinct components, and as demonstrated in figure 1, complemented by (ongoing) work of the WBG Payments Systems team, and of the Financial Institutions group.

The project will work on 3 levels—regulatory, sectorial and institutional—to support stakeholders with regulatory reforms, awareness raising and knowledge dissemination, as well as technical advice to private sector firms with the implementation of their selected M-money product. At different engagement levels, the project’s partners will be regulators (National Bank of Kyrgyz republic, National Bank of Tajikistan and Financial Market Control Chamber in Azerbaijan) , financial institutions and mobile network operators as well as other private sector players which will act as agents for key players. The project will also carry out various awareness raising activities for the benefit of end users of e-services and m-money products.

Figure 1: Conceptual approach of project:

Regulatory Level

Support to Governments in developing the legal framework for payment systems and e-services. Conducting public-private dialogue to develop effective legal frameworks.

Experience globally shows that, especially in dynamic environments, regulators are often challenged to understand the market evolution and ensure that appropriate regulation is in place. At the same time, innovation should not be held up until the regulator has had a chance to “catch up”. Experience in other countries show that regulators are willing to let innovation happen on an experimental basis and regulate on an as needs basis, provided there is full transparency of activities of market participants. This is best achieved through an on-going dialogue, by keeping the regulator abreast of developments and plans. Establishing a forum of bank and non-bank payment service providers will provide such a forum in a more formalized manner and will also allow the regulator to solicit feedback on proposed legislative changes. This component will bring together private sector payment service providers to set up a forum that aims to turn into an association over time. Initially the output is a series of workshops bringing together all service providers, leveraging IFC’s and local team’s footprint on the ground and ties to the private sector.

Sectorial Level

Conducting intra-private dialogue to build consensus on a) development of one platform, b) ensuring inter-operability for different operators, and c) awareness-raising of users (consumers).

This component has three key objectives: (1) to support market participants in understanding challenges and opportunities related to national payment system (especially in Kyrgyzstan), e-services and ADCs; (2) to facilitate a consensus in the industry in regards of a joint platform and/or business model economically sustainable and acceptable to the key players; and (iii) to ensure that consumers understand the various payment and MM products offered. Led by the local team and supported by both GST2 and IFC’s technical specialists, activities towards achieving these objectives include:

Industry level work:

The project team will work with all relevant stakeholders as a group to discuss market risks and opportunities based on the afore mentioned study results and facilitate discussions between different market participants such as MFIs, banks, MNOs and other non-bank PSPs, which should lead to viable partnerships appropriate for each country. This is a delicate phase, as each side lacks understanding of what the other does, instinctively prefers ownership of the business, and may overestimate the e- money (and m-banking) economic opportunity. Global experience shows that market participants initially focus on the transaction revenue, when the actual business lies in increase sales in the core business. The team will provide transparent advice and ensure the interests of all stakeholders are preserved. By not aligning with any one party, the project team aims to play the role of neutral party with international expertise to facilitate efficient and sustainable partnerships.

Consumer Education:

Conduct financial education of end-users of e-financial products and services(incl. m-banking) by developing new content on digital financial services, alternative delivery channels, players etc. and using the existing Financial Literacy Program framework (developed under another project, ACAFI) to disseminate the content to consumers.

Individual Institutions

Identifying /supporting individual institutions to develop and deploy e-services. The focus of this component will be on identifying viable private sector players or group of players aiming to launch digital financial services or planning to develop partnerships to expand their current services offering utilizing digital and other alternative delivery channels. Work under this component will focus on helping clients to develop business plans for implementation of DFS. The actual support in implementing such business plans would be under separate projects (under FIG HiFi program) to enable results tracking and attribution. The proposed solutions will be developed in accordance with the industry standards for interoperability (these standards will be developed through industry engagement and consensus, achieved through the on-going dialogue with all types of stakeholders involved in solutions development on both levels). Work on this level will be led by the local team in close partnership with FIG industry specialists .The local team will manage the client relationships, where the industry specialists will provide technical advice to potential clients. This model has been tested during the pre-implementation stage in case of T-Cell in Tajikistan. Activities under this component include:

a. Business development: Identify, screen and initiate dialogue with potential partners; b. Assist selected aggregators (FI or MNO) with formulation of their strategies, preparation of a business plan and marketing strategy, as well as the rollout plan.

c. Support in developing e-money and MM products, including the deployment plan, and facilitate partnerships with a MNO (for FI clients) or with FIs (for MNO clients). The project expects to support at least 3 services providers in two countries.

The project will be executed by the jointly by World Bank Group Practice Finance and Markets (F&M GP) and IFC Financial Institutions Group (FIG).