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The Focus Group of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies, has released a new report on regulating the Digital Financial Services (DFS) sector and another report on consumer protection.

The two reports which were released on Tuesday, "Regulation in the Digital Financial Services Ecosystem" and "Commonly identified Consumer Protection themes for Digital Financial Services," identify how regulators in the telecom and financial services sectors can play a crucial role in rolling out digital financial services and the common themes that policymakers must consider in developing laws and guideless on consumer protection.

“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.

The Focus Group, which was established in 2014 by the ITU has four Working Groups; namely, DFS Ecosystem, Consumer Experience and Protection, Interoperability and Technology, as well as Innovation and Competition. The goal of the Focus Group is to develop guidelines, principles and toolkits to help increase access to basic financial services for the poor using digital and mobile technologies.

“Trust is an essential ingredient for digital financial services to succeed,” said Sacha Polverini, Chairman of the Focus Group. “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.” Polverini is also Senior Programme Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor programme.

Apart from these two new reports, the Focus Group published four research papers last month. In a statement issued on today, ITU said the next set of research papers will be published after the Group's upcoming meeting in September 2016 in Tanzania.
 
“Regulation must nurture the development of a strong and healthy digital finance sector,” Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General, said. “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. For the first time the Focus Group has sought to identify a clear framework that regulators around the world can use. I believe also that the work being done will contribute significantly towards reducing global poverty, helping therefore to achieve the first Sustainable Development Goal.”