A Billion to Gain Conference 2016, Digital Inclusion, 11 October 2016, Amsterdam

A Billion to Gain Conference 2016, Digital Inclusion, 11 October 2016, Amsterdam

On 11 October 2016, Michel Maquil, Chairman of InFiNe.lu, attended in Amsterdam A Billion to Gain Conference 2016 on digital inclusion. The conference was the opportunity for ING’s Economics Bureau, who analyses the latest trend in financial inclusion, to present its latest results on how FinTech can financially include micro and small enterprises in low and middle income countries.

As keynote speaker, His Excellency Mr J.S. Mukul, Ambassador of India in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, presented the special relationship between India and the Netherlands in the field of financial inclusion. Under the leadership of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a broad plan has been established to help India to create the necessary prerequisites for financial inclusion. At the core of this plan, is a sophisticated secure system to identify the customers as well as an efficient money transfer facility.

During the conference, Hans Bos, Microsoft Netherlands National Technology Officer, pleaded for the “Cloud” to become a common good in the interest of the world population. Access to finance remains the biggest challenge in the field of financial inclusion. The conference underlined that FinTechs can be the game changer in this context. Mobile phones can be used to provide the customer with the needed financial services.

Gerben Hieminga, ING Senior Economist, hoped that the Distributed Ledger Technology will bring down significantly the costs of lending and, thus, all the costs linked to financial inclusion. Finally, Benoît Legrand, Global Head ING FinTech, presented ING strategy in the field of FinTechs. ING main target aims at making business easier. To achieve this goal, ING wants to connect as much as possible with other actors of the FinTech scene.

For more information about the conference, click here

To consult the full report of the conference, click here