सिंहदरबार संवाददाता
Kathmandu. The ‘6th Leaders Roundtable’ meeting of the ‘South Asia Region Financial Inclusion Initiative (SARFII)’ was held in Kathmandu on Thursday under the chairmanship of Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari.
The meeting was attended by Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Dapi Nandalal Weerasinghe, Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Dr. Mohammad Habibur Rahman, Maldives Monetary Authority Deputy Governor Imad Ahmed, Central Bank of Pakistan Executive Director Swed Samar Hussain, and Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Finance of Bangladesh Kamrul Haque Marufko.
Resources, SARFI’s Expert Group on Financial Inclusion Policy (EGFIP)’ The concept was presented on the subject of Terms of Reference.
Various views were expressed by the heads/representatives of the member organizations of SARFII on the said concept. The meeting also approved the annual work plan to be implemented through SARFII in 2025.
In the first session of the meeting, all the participants from the member institutions presented the current status of financial inclusion in their respective countries and the future vision to be adopted through SARFII to promote financial inclusion in South Asia.
On the occasion, Governor Adhikari mentioned the efforts made by Nepal Rastra Bank in promoting financial inclusion and discussed that Nepal has made significant strides in financial access and the use of electronic payments.
To strengthen financial inclusion in the South Asian region, digitalization of financial services, customer protection, digital financial literacy and microfinance are the key areas of focus. He called for emphasis on expanding financial services to small and medium enterprises.
On that occasion, delivering a welcome speech at the “Leaders Roundtable” session of the sub-meeting of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), Governor Adhikari pointed out the need to make SARFII’s activities result-oriented to achieve the targeted objective of financial inclusion in the South Asian region.
For that, he was of the opinion that regional cooperation and coordination should be further strengthened. The agenda of the meeting was to strengthen regional cooperation and coordination through SARFII and prepare a sustainable, inclusive and innovative financial services framework for the next five years.
In the meantime, the opening remarks were made by the Chief Executive Officer of the ‘SARFII Charter’, Xi Su Yuen, on behalf of the member institutions of SARFII. The closing remarks were made by the Governor Adhikari and the Executive Director of the State Bank of Pakistan, Hussain, at the meeting.
The SARFII was established at the twelfth meeting of the AFI, Global Policy Forum held in Jordan in September 2022, under the efforts of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). The network includes the central banks of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as the Microcredit Regulatory Authority in Bangladesh. The Nepal Rastra Bank has been chairing SARFII since September 2024.
The SARFII was established with the objectives of knowledge exchange, capacity building and joint learning exercises at the regional level, implementation of technical assistance, and financial inclusion by following good practices.
Before the ‘SARFII Leaders Roundtable’ meeting, the ‘Expert Group on Financial Inclusion Policy (EGFIP)’ and the ‘Payment Expert Group (PEG)’ were held on Falgun 5 and the related agenda was discussed. Similarly, a training on ‘Regional Training on Enhancing Cyber Resilience in Digital Payments and Infrastructure’ was conducted from Falgun 5 to 7 under the joint organization of AFI and Rastra Bank.
On that occasion, the training focused on capacity building for mitigating cyber security risks, protecting financial customers from such risks, and exchanging experiences on regional practices related to this. 31 representatives from Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Maldives participated in the training.
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