Undersecretary Beltran talks financial inclusion and literacy in Chicago
Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran attended the 10th Financial Literacy Summit hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, held in Chicago last 20 April 2015, where he spoke at the first panel on Innovative Changes in Financial Education.
The panel celebrated the heightened awareness of financial inclusion among international organizations and fora, such as the UN-ESCAP, APEC (which through the Philippine chairmanship has adopted a medium-term Cebu Action Plan as guide for member-economies), and ASEAN, as well as multilateral and bilateral institutions like WB, IFC, USAID and GIZ now assisting countries to enhance their financial inclusion strategies in line with global best practices.
The panel also noted significant improvements in technology opening more doors to access, transaction processing, and information dissemination through websites, ATMs mobile phones and telecom gadgets to expand and cover more stakeholders from policymakers and regulators down to clients and potential savers. Also discussed were encouraging advancements in product development and regulations giving rise to the issuance of innovative financial products responding to the needs and requirements of the financially excluded sectors.
Financial literacy programs were also explored with the aim of covering all stakeholders including potential clients like schoolchildren, financially challenged sectors, and transfers beneficiaries. The panel likewise took a look at the development of alternative dispute resolution schemes to reduce the costs to stakeholders of conflict resolution.
Finally, the panel welcomed the emergence of other forms of nonbank financial institutions responding most effectively to the financially excluded like cooperatives, credit unions, provident funds and financial infrastructures that enable more information to be accessed by lenders, borrowers, savers and other stakeholders.
Below is a short transcript of a portion of Undersecretary Beltran’s contributions to the panel.
