Robin Davies speaks with Dr Ruth Goodwin-Groen, an Australian financial inclusion specialist who recently stepped down from her position as founding Managing Director of the Better than Cash Alliance, a position in which she served for over a decade.
Robin Davies speaks with Dr Ruth Goodwin-Groen, an Australian financial inclusion specialist who recently stepped down from her position as founding Managing Director of the Better than Cash Alliance, a position in which she served for over a decade. Ruth has devoted much of her working life to furthering the idea that digital payment systems, well managed, can be swifter, safer, more transparent and more inclusive than cash.
The Better Than Cash Alliance is a global partnership hosted by the United Nations Development Programme in New York that was established in 2012 to accelerate the transition from cash to responsible digital payments worldwide. It brings together over 80 members, including governments, companies, and international organizations, with the aim of advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through financial inclusion. It provides advisory services, conducts research, facilitates peer learning, and advocates for the responsible adoption of digital payment systems.
The World Bank’s Global Findex Database that Ruth mentions in this interview can be found here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/globalfindex/Data
This is episode seven in our 2024 season, which is a new beginning for the podcast after a hiatus of two years. We're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the centre – Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and Indo-Pacific regional and global development issues.
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 00:03
Our goal was a global movement from cash to digital payments. And we did all the foundations then COVID supercharged it because everyone went, wait, we could do this digitally. You know who's doing that, let's learn from them. So we had the foundations ready and then COVID supercharged it. So there's no question that now that digital payments are vital. That was a big achievement.
Acknowledgement 00:28
We wish to acknowledge the Indigenous people of Australia, the wider Asia Pacific region and other parts of the world and express our respect for their traditional knowledge and practices, which stem from a deep connection to the lands and waters they have inhabited for millennia.
Robin Davies 00:50
Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We're part of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra. I'm Robin Davies. In 2024, we've relaunched our podcast after a more than two year hiatus. In this new season, we're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and more in depth documentary features relating to the topics we researched at the centre, namely Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and regional and global development issues. This seventh episode of the season is an interview I recorded with Dr. Ruth Goodwin-Groen. Ruth is an Australian financial inclusion specialist who recently stepped down from her position as founding Managing Director of the Better Than Cash Alliance, a position in which she served for over a decade. She has devoted much of her working life to furthering the idea that digital payments systems, well managed, can be swift to safer, more transparent, and more inclusive than cash. The Better Than Cash Alliance is a global partnership hosted by the United Nations Development Programme in New York that was established in 2012 to accelerate the transition from cash to responsible digital payments worldwide. It brings together over 80 members, including governments, companies, and international organisations, with the aim of advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through financial inclusion. It provides advisory services, conducts research, facilitates peer learning, and advocates for the responsible adoption of digital payment systems. So Ruth to begin with, can I just ask you to introduce yourself and just tell our listeners what role you've just finished up in.
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 02:36
I have just left the United Nations, and I was the founding Managing Director of the Better Than Cash Alliance that was hosted by the UN Capital Development Fund. And I started that 12 years ago. And the goal was to create a global movement from cash to digital payments. And we achieved that.
Robin Davies 02:59
People are always curious about the trajectory of a person's career. I know you began your career in the same agency that I did, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau in the mid 80s. How did you get from there to your UN position?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 03:14
It's a great place to start because you have a huge view of development writ large, with the countries that Australia cares about, and also the global agenda. And then I went on posting, and went to Ethiopia at the time of the famine, which was an amazing experience, because you get to see how all the other bilateral and multilaterals work in the field and also dealing with an immediate crisis, a humanitarian crisis. What I learned from that, though, that we couldn't keep doing humanitarian forever, you can't send bags of food for eternity. So I moved into financial services, I went and got an MBA, so I could move into the financial services aspect of development, and then worked in microfinance and other aspects of financial sector development, and evolved with the sector because it was growing at the time, and then came back to Australia, because the G20 wanted to work on innovation in financial services, and the Treasury and Foreign Affairs and it was at the time AusAID, people realised that they I had the expertise and so I came back to work with them on the G20 agenda and ended up as the AusAID's financial inclusion adviser, or I think my official title was financial services for the poor. And then after doing that for three years, I was invited to start the Better Than Cash Alliance at the UN. And so it's been following the financial services and development trajectory since then, but staying connected to AusAID and now DFAT all the way through.
Robin Davies 04:55
Now I wanted to ask you for a bit of, I guess, scene setting information on the Better Than Cash Alliance, what is it? What does it mean to say 'better than cash', we're talking about digital payments. But that's almost provocative in a sense, because of course, there's a whole section of the development community that is very focused on cash payments as an effective form of development assistance. So maybe if you could talk a bit about what the Alliance is all about.
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 04:59
Better Than Cash is a provocative title, correct, because it helps people realise that if you want to have a digital alternative, or electronic alternative, that it has to actually be better than the cash that people are using. It has to be safer, more transparent, it has to be more cost effective and has to deliver better services. And whether you're old or young, woman or man, it has to be better for you. And so the purpose of the Alliance was to work with governments and companies and international organisations that were on a journey away from cash to whatever form of digital payment was best in their particular market or in their particular service delivery. And so the Alliance worked alongside them on whether it was the Government of Bangladesh, or the companies that were working in Bangladesh, or whether it was international organisations like WFP. And as you rightly said, there's a push for not food aid to but to deliver cash. It used to be physical cash, but now it's digital payments. And so WFP is now a big advocate for digital payments, because even though they call it cash transfers, it's actually digital payment transfers. It's just a misnomer.
Robin Davies 06:40
How does the Better Than Cash Alliance fit into the constellation of sort of related entities, we have the G20 Partnership for Financial Inclusion, we have a consultative group to assist the poorest, which is also about financial inclusion, how do these things relate to each other?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 06:57
They're all complementary, but have a different niche. And so for example, the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion is about the policy level of the G20. And in fact, the Better Than Cash Alliance was an implementing partner. So together with the World Bank, and CGAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, and IFAD and others, we were implementing partners, and wrote the research papers and provided recommendations to the G20 members, because we were the technical experts in the area that supported the G20. And then the other international organisations, so for example, CGAP, their members are all the bilateral multilateral funders. So it's working for that membership. Our members are the governments of Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, and companies that are on a journey like H&M and Marks & Spencer and Inditex that own Zara, or Unilever, or the World Cocoa Foundation, that includes all the cocoa companies. So those are our members. And so we work with different, and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, they're members of the central banks, and they work on regulatory policies. So everyone has different sets of members and is really focused on their niche in the market.
Robin Davies 08:17
I recall when you and I were both working on G20 development issues, the overwhelming focus of the G20's work on financial inclusion was about remittances, and reducing the transaction cost of international remittances in various corridors. How far was the work of the Alliance focused on those international remittance transfers versus domestic financial inclusion?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 08:44
We chose not to work on international remittances because there were a lot of other people in the space working out like IFAD well as others, and it's very corridor specific. And so you have to work with Australia, as well as the Pacific. And we weren't working with the member countries. And so we didn't have a comparative advantage. So we didn't end up in that area because I was working on it. And we didn't have a comparative advantage.
Robin Davies 09:11
Was there some work, I guess, at the receiving end on financial systems that better enable them?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 09:18
Oh, totally. You know, if you look at the biggest corridor in the world for remittances is the US-Mexico corridor, and Mexico is a member of the Better Than Cash Alliance. And one of the reasons that they were working on it was, in fact, to be able to receive remittances into accounts that could then be, there could be savings, there could be building a history of receiving regular payments so that they could, small businesses could get loans. And so it was very much in Mexico's interest and any other receiving country, Bangladesh and others that are major receiving countries to be able to build the infrastructure for you to use those remittances, for growth.
Robin Davies 10:02
The work of the Alliance is clearly very practical in its orientation. Could you maybe take us through one or two country examples where the Alliance has provided policy and technical support. And this has led to considerable systemic improvements and growth in financial inclusion?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 10:22
I could tell lots of stories. Let me give just a couple then. So I mentioned Bangladesh, because that's a useful example, that many people know who are your audience here. That is that despite the current challenges, there is a very clear policy of digital Bangladesh and now smart Bangladesh, but the government had their own priorities on creating a digital future for Bangladesh. And at the same time, their major export is their major foreign currency earning, is in the readymade garment sector, the RMG sector. And there are many global companies that were under pressure to improve their practices, especially after the Rana Plaza disaster. And they realised that one way of doing that was to have transparency in what workers were being paid, so that the woman who was in one of the garment factories, instead of being paid physical cash, could be paid into an account, in her own name over which she had control. There's a great webinar that's on the Better Than Cash Alliance website, of one of the workers commenting that on pay day, there used to be a long line of fathers, husbands, brothers, around the corner when the majority women workers would come out on a pay day. And so but nobody actually knows what was supposed to be paid and what was paid. And so together, we brought the Government of Bangladesh, different ministries that were relevant, whether it's central bank, as well as the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Finance, Prime Minister's office, so all the relevant for the government officials know that whole of government approach is vital. And then the garment companies that knew that transparency, in being able to pay workers was vital, so that everyone knew exactly how much each woman was getting paid, and that she would have control over it.
So all of the companies became members of the Better Than Cash Allliance and made a commitment to transparency and digitisation. And then also the unions they were vital because they realised this was in the interests of their members in Bangladesh. And of course, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Association, the local factory owners that were worked with international companies. And so and then there were many advocates that were doing financial education, health education with women who worked in the factories. And so all of those key players were vital. And that was a high risk strategy. But we brought them all together in a summit to be able to, so that everyone can it was the first time they had ever all been talking about how to pay workers fairly in a way that worked for every woman who was in one of those factories. And it was as a result of that, everyone won. The government moved its digital Bangladesh agenda forward, the companies moved their transparency agenda forward, the garment manufacturers were able to report exactly how much they were paying, they came out looking great. But most importantly, the women benefited. There was no longer after this was started, there was no longer a long line of brothers, husbands, fathers, whatever, standing outside, there was nobody standing outside because it was in her feature phone, not a smartphone, just a regular phone into her account over which she could have control.
Robin Davies 14:05
That raises I guess two questions. First you said that the multinational companies concerned were convinced that wage transparency was important. That might surprise some people, what made them arrive at that conviction?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 14:20
Consumer pressure, that they didn't want to buy clothes from sweatshops. And so if you can say we are paying the minimum wage, then you have a clear advocacy agenda to show that you're not having sweatshops. And so that does not say though, that necessarily the minimum wage is a living wage. And now there is a big agenda on improving the wages so that they're living wages. There are great advocacy groups that are working on living wages now, but you have to have transparency in order to get to a living wage.
Robin Davies 14:55
The view of husbands and fathers and brothers might have gone away but those people are still there. Has any research been done on the consequences of this change in terms of the potential for increased domestic violence or other issues?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 15:10
There are some great groups that were, as I mentioned, the people who are doing health, education, financial education and other capability building, they are like BSR, and others Business for Social Responsibility. And there are other major civil society groups working in Bangladesh, obviously, there's lots of them. And so building capability on women to be able to negotiate within their household about what's important for children, and how much, where of payments go and that sort of thing. So there's great work done. That has been complementary, the gender-based violence issue, to the best of my knowledge, that, you know, there has always been gender-based violence, and this has not been a cause of an increase where there has been capability building or where generally everybody understands that this is good for the family and society; that this will help you look, because it's part of a bigger digital Bangladesh agenda, you know, where the government is paying social protection payments and other payments for the benefit of children and others so it's this is not just an isolated activity, it's part of a national agenda.
Robin Davies 16:30
And when you support that kind of transition that you've just described in Bangladesh, what's actually happening in the background? Is the Alliance playing primarily a convening role? Or is there also technical support for, you know, systems development, digital payment systems development?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 16:46
From the Alliance perspective, it depends on each market. So Bangladesh is exceptional, because they had a brilliant team that was working on digital Bangladesh, and they now have smart Bangladesh, and they have a goal of zero digital divide. And so their vision is very clear and they work with multiple partners as part of that agenda. And so there was, we were not needed to work on the technical side, because they've got this great team that is leading it. Our goal was to accelerate what from a convening perspective. And then we put people - we did have people in that team, yes. Or if there was particularly so we had people team working on digitising taxes and other person to government payments. And we had people that based on the request of where they needed it. So it was very much part of the localisation agenda, what they were, what their priorities were, where there were gaps in their plan.
Robin Davies 17:48
Can I ask about smaller and more fragile states and settings? Have you encountered success in such settings, places like Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and so forth?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 18:00
Could I use an Ethiopian example as a clear LDC [least developed country] where they had no plan. And so we started, they said they wanted a national digital payment strategy that was complementary to their homegrown economic strategy and so forth. And so we sent a team in to begin with to work with them on what they actually wanted in terms of their own, their other economic growth strategies. And then what ended up the national digital payment strategy has no international logos, you can't see our footprint there at all, because it was all led by the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance in Ethiopia. And what was interesting is that subsequently, we did have somebody full time in the facilitating the action points that were there, and others as needed, but it was we had to start from scratch in that market, and also work with other members who were on their social protection program, or on their humanitarian response, very closely related in that market, or working in major export now, such as coffee. And so there is an alignment between digitising coffee payments and ensuring that women farmers are recognised and included. And so that is the next stage on implementation.
Robin Davies 19:29
I'm aware that the Alliance has done some work in facilitating digital payments in crisis situations, the West Africa Ebola outbreak and during the pandemic. What was that? What type of support were you providing?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 19:42
Again, it was based on the priorities of the governments and probably the best example is Colombia during the pandemic, where they had many people who were small business owners who had no social protection, but it had to be shut down in the face of the virus. And so the they convened a situation room where they had the Ministry of Finance, the central banks, the social welfare, the electoral office that had the idea that a whole lot of different people that were related to being able to make payments to those whose income had just stopped. And they asked us for somebody to facilitate that process in this situation. And so one of our team members was in there, facilitating working with them, so that helping all of the different players get together. And they developed an extension, that's called Ingreso Solidario, of their social protection program that reached that was able to use mobile money payments, they had the telcos in the room too, as well as the banks. But the telcos were the ones who could actually reach small businesses, women-owned small businesses or women-headed households. And they had to help the women on their phones, to be able to receive the payment, figure out how to make the payments, you know, so that they could then get food for their families. And it was so successful that they kept it going afterwards. And so it was a win for the government, because they were able to move really quickly. And the situation room having everyone there was a win for particularly low income people and women-headed households, I think 63% of those received were women-headed households. And it was so successful for the government that they've kept it going. And a big shout out now because they are they've given their refugees ID and working with UNHCR and other agencies to be able to align it with social protection. So they're not so it's seen as an equitable system for everybody.
Robin Davies 21:51
You have said that the pandemic supercharged interest in digital payments, why is that? And how were you able to respond to that?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 22:00
I think the Colombia example was a useful example. Because if you're in lockdown, and you can't go out, I mean, our dear friends in Peru had people receive cash payments, and people had to line up all the way along the banks outside, and it ended up being a way to transmit COVID more quickly. And so you know, if you can just put it straight into somebody's account, then you can reduce the effective of COVID. And then, oh, what do you know, it's quicker, faster, more transparent. And everyone has got a record to be able to show there's no small value exchanges happening under the table or that are able that don't go tracked. And so people understood both government officials as well as clients, and people receiving payments understood the benefit during COVID. And then there's been, you know, incredible advances in the different types of services that are available. There's been whether it's on the mobile side, colleagues at the peak council for mobile phones, the GSMA, took the opportunity to really help people benefit from or understand the benefits for mobile use. They're moving obviously fast on the smartphone side, but in emerging markets, and LDCs, the feature phone is still there, but pick up of smartphones is very quick. Because affordability is coming I mean, the prices are coming down to make them more affordable quite quickly. And so and then, of course, G20 countries like India, Indonesia, are really moving very fast on that front. So many Australians know how fast Indonesia has moved. They're a great example. Lots of people want to learn from them. They're a member of the Better Than Cash Alliance, on what they've done on, you know, the leaders like Grab and Go Jek and others in Indonesia that everyone can see. They were great during the pandemic, and then they've provided amazing services so that everyone can continue to benefit them particularly in the urban centres. And now moving more to the rural areas.
Robin Davies 23:57
Most of these digital payment systems around the world do rely on the possession of some form of mobile phone on the part of the recipient. Is the coverage approaching universal even in developing countries have the right type of technology?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 24:12
Many people know the Kenyan M-PESA program, because that was the best known leader for mobile money payments because it was a feature phone, it was SMS, it was very easy for people to make and receive payments. The account - they didn't have an account - a bank account in their name. The account was in Vodafone's name. But there are lots of different variations on that now. So that what the innovations were for everyone to actually have an account on their phone, so it was in their own name. And then there was an that's just done on phone lines. It's not done through the internet, although obviously the backup is there from the financial service providers, and even in a country with the least developed country, there are still you know, nearly every house has a feature phone. And so it is a very accessible option for people on lower incomes. What is the challenge is affordability. And if you read the World Bank's Findex as to what are the barriers for people on low incomes being able to access is when it starts getting expensive. And so the innovations, you know, if it's not affordable, it's just it's no use to anyone, it has to be better than cash, which doesn't have a cost. And so the Indian government, for example, has done its universal payment interface. That's a payment that everyone can access, and it's free. And Brazil has done picks, which has had massive uptake, it's free. And so when you deal with the affordability issue, many things can follow.
Robin Davies 25:46
And what about refugee populations are people typically provided with low technology phones in order to facilitate digital payments?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 25:56
In many cases there I mean, obviously, it depends on each market. But WFP has been a great leader, because often there is a phone for an extended family, because they want to stay connected to their own family. And it's often the only way that they can maintain those connections. And so WFP has done a great job working in crisis situations to figure out what is most appropriate in that market. So in some cases, they use vouchers instead of phones, and they it can go to the the small shop has the phone and it can be used that way. And so they're very creative options in each depending on each market.
Robin Davies 26:35
Can I ask you maybe a list welcome question, a case where you or rather, the Alliance has sort of tried and failed, where the barriers were just too great. A country example, perhaps?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 26:46
Well, we only work with governments and countries that are members of the Better Than Cash Alliance that have committed a whole of government commitment to a journey away from cash. And so countries that we cannot work with countries that are not members. And so we only have 33 actual members, although many of the countries that are members of the African Union, or members of the G20. Or have their own journey and are not members. Because to become a member, you have to have a commitment to transparency, and to sharing knowledge about what you're learning with others. And not every government is ready to make that kind of commitment. Because we do that Alliance did when I was there. We did a lot of peer learning to be able to share what works and what doesn't. And so would I like every single country in the world to have been a member of the Better Than Cash Alliance? Yes, but that's where the I don't know whether you call it failure, but not everybody was ready to make that commitment.
Robin Davies 27:48
Staying on the topic of difficulties. I won't stay here for too long. But you know, the the regimes that have been put in place, particularly by OECD countries to control terrorism financing and money laundering have been quite onerous on the banking sector in developing countries. How much of an impediment has that been for your work over the past decade?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 28:09
How much is a difficult question, because it's, you know, you don't have the counterfactual. And as I said, every country that became a member was committed to making it a journey. And so was committed to Basel 3. And so every member is committed to being on a journey on their digital payments journey. And that is, because they see it as vital for growth and and, and inclusion, particularly financial inclusion. And so they are committed to figuring out how to address the requirements of the global standard setters, whether it's the Basel Committee, or Fattah, or CPMI or others. So by nature of exclusion, not everybody. We didn't deal with countries that were facing great listing or blacklisting by FATF. But overall, that is a problem because the rules are set in a way that can have negative consequences for inclusion. And then the additional requirement now of being able to manage proliferation financing as well that's a whole nother set of capacity that central banks have to have. So there is a there is still a lot globally of capacity building this needed to be able to move to be able to comply with the standard setters and being able to then ensure that people on low incomes are not excluded simply because they're on low incomes.
Robin Davies 29:40
In most countries, including Australia, there's still a very healthy cash economy, informal cash economy, for obvious reasons. Is there such a thing as an informal digital payments economy, or is it always visible to the taxation system?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 29:54
Not as a financial inclusion specialist but as a development professional, we all want to governments to have higher domestic resource mobilisation. And thank you for asking the tax question because often there is a misconception that by joining the digital payments infrastructure, that people then expose themselves, they're going to have their money taken from them by the tax authorities, there is great work being done by tax specialists, realising that actually, the what they can see is the tip of the iceberg. And they need to be able to understand better, who are avoiding taxes for the large part of the iceberg that's not visible. And that is where they need to focus their attention on how to increase domestic resource mobilisation. So the sort of the one that everyone can see at the top of the iceberg, this the small digital payments happening with small businesses there, because it's because everyone can see it, there has been political interest in taxing it in some countries, they're particularly Uganda and places like that they have text digital payments. And as a result, people have been moving back to cash, as Kenyan senior official once said, "they're killing the goose that lays the golden egg".
And so people are realising that so hopefully, that will just be a blip. And people realise that it is counterproductive to tax people on low incomes in a way that prevents them from helping grow the economy, and that the tax and so there are, there's great work being done to help people understand those negative effects and refocus some of the taxing not on the small businesses or the low income people. So yes, there is a there is a fear. But you have to that's why whole of government approach, because the tax authorities need to be part of this part of understanding how this benefits the economy. You don't have to be a financial sector specialist to be able to work with the governments that you're working with, or the companies that you're working with, to ask great questions to on how that can be helpful for their processes.
So, for example, the Better Than Cash Alliance did the UN principles for responsible digital payments. And they're really there in everyday language, there are things like make sure you know who's accountable for what. So if something goes wrong, then who do you call? And that's just a basic customer service thing. That's not a financial sector expert. But you know, you've got to be able to know who you call if something goes wrong? And will it get fixed in 48 hours? If your money goes to the wrong place? Will it come back? So those UN principles for responsible digital payments are part is something that every government official, every aid official, every person who member of civil society can understand, because we all make and receive payments, you don't have to be a financial sector expert to understand I need to get my money back within at least 48 hours if it's gone to the wrong person, or I need to know that if there's not that kind of service available, then it needs to happen now, you know, it's like, okay, so who needs to take this action? You know, and it's not so those UN principles are in language that everybody can understand. So you don't have to be an expert. And so it's really because this is part of everyday lives.
Robin Davies 33:20
So let's move away from those more difficult areas to a kind of global perspective, you've been working in this area for decades, so not just in the last decade with the Alliance. But as you look back over the last, say, 20 years or so, how has the landscape changed, what have been the big victories?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 33:39
Probably the biggest win is understanding that an inclusive economy requires financial inclusion, and an inclusive economy means everyone can participate in economic growth. And being able to see that there is or I think the economic term is bidirectional causality between financial sector development and economic growth. And so if you can have everybody part of the financial sector, then you are able to really drive inclusive growth, because then small businesses have a chance to grow with credit and other insurance and other financial services. And now, of course, people are understanding that in the face of climate change, if you're going to have adaptive social protection, people have to be able to receive payments, if you're going to have weather index insurance, people need to be able to make and receive payments. And so there is so I think the big win is understanding this is just a basic thing that everybody needs to be part of an inclusive economy in a way that works for them at a price they can afford in a way that is appropriate for their market. And so for me, that's the big win. It's like it's an everybody knows that now And that is it doesn't have to be complicated. It's just something that needs to happen.
Robin Davies 35:05
And are there good metrics on financial inclusion that you can point to? Or is it difficult to get data across the full range of countries?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 35:15
There are two answers to that. One is yes, it's easy. And the other is there still work to do. So the yes it's easy part is the World Bank does have their financial inclusion index that is based on that has been going now since we just started. So 20, I think 11 was the first one and and then and since once we've started working, everyone realised, oh, we need to track digital payments. Now, since 20 13-14, I think was the first one, it's now tracked. And so you can see exactly over the last, and they do it every three years. And so you can see there's great data on each country on their financial inclusion inclusion process, and it is six disaggregated data. And they've expanded this because of the demand for different types of data on whether people pay their wages digitally, or what they make, whether they receive their wages digitally, and so on what is the hard part is that is a standardised Gallup Poll run globally. And it's not tailored to a market in Papua New Guinea, or Kenya, or Colombia. And so many central banks have their own data that they're putting together. But it's not it is not necessarily standard. And so this fin scope data that Kenya does, that's incredibly detailed, incredibly useful. But it's not necessarily standard with Ethiopia or its other surrounding countries. So then that makes it harder for so you can compare within country but not between countries. And so the IMF has its financial access survey that central banks provide. And that is making progress. And there are various other indices. And there's great work done by say women business and the law at the World Bank that look at particularly looks at regulation for women businesses. And you can see where there are barriers to women's access to financial services. So there are some great data sources, but for getting really granular, it's going to take a while longer.
Robin Davies 37:22
Now you've made the point that investments in financial inclusion deliver particularly high returns when focused on whether it's individual women or women-led businesses, what are the barriers for expanding financial inclusion for women at this point in time are there are there some places where you face particular ongoing barriers?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 37:42
I always hesitate to generalise, because each market is very particular. But the number one and the World Bank index shows us number one is affordability. You know, because of those in poverty, women are the majority of those who are excluded women are the majority. And affordability is number one access to their own phones, feature phones, and then being able to afford it, is really important. There's some great work done by different organisations on gender norms, and so forth. But, you know, if you can't have a phone in your hand you can't afford it doesn't matter what anything else happens. That's a sort of a basic. And then that is the examples of countries that have made things open for everybody. I mean, made payments accessible by everybody. And free, is what is really going to be sort of foundational for all the other work. That's happening. And, of course, the regulation change we did at the time of generation equality and 2021 that UN Women led, but we did work on reaching financial equality for women. And just looking at the things that are possible to do by government, such as removing barriers on regulation, so that women don't have to have their if a man doesn't have to have his spouse, countersign a woman doesn't have to have her spouse to countersign. So that those kinds of so there's equality in the way that women have access to a payment account or other financial services. And those are things that governments can do. They don't, it's not rocket science, it's just an economic growth thing. And so in reaching financial equality, there's the kinds of things that are important as well as just basic things like hiring women, so they actually understand what their clients wants hiring women in financial service providers or central banks or others so that they actually are able to listen to women as clients and understand them what their priorities are, and as well as actions like if you've got a government program that you're digitising, you know, exactly, you've got sex desegregated data everywhere so you know, who's getting what, and you can then take action. So there are 10 actions that we've outlined that will really that are pretty straightforward. But for governments to do and of course, there are many opportunities in e-commerce now that weren't there before that can be can be an opportunity if women have whatever is appropriate in their market to be able to take advantage.
Robin Davies 40:14
Now you've just finished after more than a decade with the Better Than Cash Alliance, clearly, you've left it in organisationally good shape, I believe it's now hosted by UNDP. Previously, the UN Capital Development Fund, do you feel like you achieved most of what you set out to do? And what's the next frontier for whoever comes next as managing director?
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 40:36
Well, you never reach perfection. So you know, accept that one can always do better. But our goal was a global movement from cash to digital payments. And we did all the foundations since then. COVID supercharged because everyone went, wait, we could do this digitally. You know, who's doing this? Let's learn from them to so we had the foundation's ready, and then COVID supercharged it. So there's no question that now that digital payments are vital. As I said, that was a big achievement. And then everybody, each government and company is doing it in their in their own way. And there's some great organisations that are doing related issues, whether it's on digital ID to help them or whether it's on data, because those two big issues have become part of digital public infrastructure language that allows particularly bilateral multilateral funders to be able to put together a whole package of services for for governments. So yes, we achieved our goal on a global movement. And yes, there is a long there's still a long way to go in terms of building the infrastructure for for emerging markets to position them to take advantage of this growth opportunity.
Robin Davies 41:51
And we'll leave it there for today. Thank you very much, Ruth for speaking with us as one of your first acts after leaving the Alliance and all the best with your future work.
Ruth Goodwin-Groen 42:02
Thanks, Robin.
Outro 42:06
Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre. Show Notes are posted to Simplecast. Our producers Robin Davies, Amita Monterola, and Jackie Hanafie. You can read and subscribe to our daily blogs on aid, international development, and the Pacific at devpolicy.org. And you can follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. You can send us feedback and ideas for episodes to to devpolicy@anu.edu.au. Join us again in another fortnight for the next episode of Devpolicy Talks.