ISLAMABAD:Chief Executive Officer Pakistan Furniture Council Mian Kashif Ashfaq Thursday urged the need for creating favorable operating and policy environment, besides ensuring affordable internet access to expand and promote digital finance in the country.
Talking to a delegation of women entrepreneurs led by Ms Hafiza Mahrukh Nasir, he said that consumer protection and stable regulations were also needed to foster safe and fair practices that bolster trust in the financial system.
He said digital transformation makes it easier, cheaper and safer for people to receive wages, send remittances and pay for goods and services.
Around the world,high inflation,slow economic growth and food shortages are hurting the poor strata of the society, he said adding that unequal effects of the COVID-19, pandemic, today multiple crisis have already caused dramatic reversal in development and led to a substantial increase in global poverty.
He said on the positive side,the crisis spurred unprecedented change,especially in industries with a large digital component, adding that this digital revolution has catalyzed increase in access to and use of financial services in developing economies,transforming how people make and receive payments,borrow and save.
He further said that individual accounts also give women more privacy,security and control over their money, adding that the share of adults in developing economies who make or receive digital payments grew from 35 percent in 2014 to 57 percent last year.
He said digital revolution offers a chance to increase formal sector employment without making compliance excessively burdensome. He said financial education programs especially those that involve peer-to-peer learning are essential as well.
Leader of the delegation Ms Hafiza Mahrukh Nasir speaking on the occasion said the World Bank is firmly committed to expanding financial inclusion through digitization and will continue to support countries as they enhance mobile phone networks,revisit regulations to foster access to finance,adopt e-government platform and