Hong Kong FinTech Week: Banking is ‘not a metric for financial inclusion’

By Sunniva Kolostyak

Having a bank account does not mean someone is financially included and FinTechs must go further, a panel heard at Hong Kong FinTech Week.

At the conference, Jason Thompson, CEO of OVO, an Indonesian payments platform looking to drive financial inclusion, said the idea of looking at how many people are banked and have a banking account is an archaic approach to financial inclusion.

“For us to truly look at FinTech, we cannot look at banking as a metric of inclusion,” Thompson said, pointing out that about 50 per cent of the Indonesian population has bank accounts, but nearly 80 per cent of people remain underbanked and not financially included.

“I think we’ve got to look at digital transformation and financial inclusion as an industry. As long as we think we can solve it alone, I don’t think we’ll ever solve it,” he said. “We have to think as platforms on what we bring and how we solve it together. I think if we can mature in that way then we can really accelerate the problem-solving.”

Also speaking at the conference, Hendra Kwik, Co-Founder & CEO of Indonesian FinTech PAYFAZZ, noted that that financial inclusion does not only come down to offering mobile apps, it is also related to financial education and literacy. To address this, the company aims to offer financial products, including payments, savings, lending or investments through an agent network which provides very simple financial literacy education.

“Hundreds of millions of people in Indonesia haven’t seen a banking product, or even used it for the past 100 years, this will be the first time for them to see a product,” Kwik explained.

“I think the human element itself is important to educate the user. If we look at the normal banking journey, even people in the city will still need some help or education from the teller in the process of any bank products that you use. So, it is the same for the people in the villages, and the human is even more important because their financial literacy and their education level is not as high as the people in the city.”

Hong Kong FinTech Week is this year is focusing on humanising FinTech as a result of the global pandemic and how banks have had to step up for consumers and businesses.

Paul Chan Mo-po, GBM, GBS, MH, JP, Financial Secretary, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, said: If COVID-19 has devastated everything it has touched, it is also spurring a wide-ranging acceptance and adoption of digital solutions to fully realise the opportunities. However, FinTech must create financial technology and solutions that understand and address real-life needs.”

Martha Sazon, President and CEO of Mynt, a Philippines-based partnership which operates mobile money solution GCash, added that as long as FinTechs ensure the safety of its customers they will be able do good.

“It is important that people are also well educated, […] that people are aware how to use it properly. We help them guard their passwords, and their money, putting all of the things in place. But at the end of the day, if the experience is good, if they are confident with the service they are getting, then I think there’s a long way to go for FinTech.”