The ITU's Focus Group on Digital Financial Services (DFS) has published new reports on regulation in the DFS ecosystem and on consumer protection.
The UN body is seeking to develop an international framework of good practice guidelines for regulators, operators and providers in the telecoms and financial services sectors.
The paper on ‘Regulation in the Digital Financial Services Ecosystem’ identifies categories of regulation and addresses a number of issues relating to managing the regulatory environment.
It includes an analysis of how regulators currently work together and provides a model memorandum of understanding that national regulators can adopt to formalize their collaboration and interaction in view of co-regulating the DFS marketplace.
“Both telecom and financial services regulators have a crucial role to play in rolling out digital financial services that are accessible to everyone around the world. Collaboration between the telecom and financial services regulators can therefore ensure a conducive regulatory environment for digital financial services to flourish,” said Chaesub Lee, director of the ITU’s Standardization Bureau.
Meanwhile, the paper entitled ‘Commonly identified Consumer Protection themes for Digital Financial Services’ identifies four common themes that policy makers or regulators may want to consider when developing laws, regulations or guidelines around consumer protection.
This includes provision of information and transparency, fraud prevention, dispute resolution and data privacy and protection.
“Trust is an essential ingredient for digital financial services to succeed. The move away from cash will only work if the solutions and processes being put in place to replace it are reliable, trustable and easy to use. This is why consumer protection is an essential part of the work we have been doing,” commented Sacha Polverini, Chairman of the Focus Group and Senior Program Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor program.
ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao said regulation must nurture the development of a strong and healthy digital finance sector.
“Given the complexity of the regulatory environment, it can often be a challenge for telecom and financial services regulatory bodies in many emerging markets to collaborate in developing national guidelines,” he said.