Confidence, connection, transformation: How the Fair Digital Finance Accelerator is making fair digital finance a reality
It’s no revelation to say that digital financial services can be truly transformative. They’re more efficient than traditional services, create more accessible banking for rural communities, provide vital real-time information and offer greater security. But as governments and providers rush to roll out new technologies, the progressive potential of digital finance falls short and all too often consumer rights become an afterthought.
In our 2023 and 2024 Consumer Experience Reports we found that 78% of countries still have gaps in digital financial consumer protection. That has resulted in lack of transparency, greater risk of scams, unsuitable redress mechanisms and existing digital inequalities being reinforced, particularly in low and middle income economies.
The Fair Digital Finance Accelerator stemmed from the belief that we don’t have to make that compromise. A global digital finance ecosystem that is fair, safe, data protected and consumer-first is possible.
The impact so far
Since launching in 2022, the Accelerator has brought together 70 consumer advocacy groups (and counting) from 46 countries. It has provided them with essential training and awarded almost US$250,000 in funding to ramp up existing campaigns and strengthen their connections with national and international policy-makers. This bottom-up approach has contributed to more fruitful interactions with digital finance actors and more policies that protect and empower consumers.
We’ve learned much through the Accelerator about what works to improve national consumer protection policy. Our research shows that in countries where engagement between consumer groups and governments is higher, we see better consumer protection and empowerment measures, greater availability of dispute resolution and better access to justice and financial outcomes that are more favourable to consumers.
Our Members have called the programme "instrumental" in helping to build on the inspiring groundwork that they have started —from developing better complaint platforms in Mexico to empowering vulnerable groups in India to combating fraud in West Africa.
Empowering consumer advocates to take the lead
Consumer groups have praised the Accelerator for arming them with a better understanding of the complexities of digital finance and its regulation processes. As a result, they’ve been emboldened in their advocacy efforts. Eight in 10 Members agreed that their understanding of digital finance issues has increased, while over 70% feel more confident, motivated and able to engage with regulators.
Damien Ndizeye, executive secretary of ADECOR Rwanda said that prior to getting involved in the Accelerator, his organisation had a less firm grasp on critical consumer rights issues, like data privacy, algorithmic fairness and access to information. He recalls that the lack of knowledge made championing transparency and fairness in digital financial services difficult and that “advocacy efforts were often fragmented”.
The Accelerator was able to help close those gaps. “The training has given us a good understanding of digital financial regulation, consumers rights and the complexities of new financial technologies,” ADECOR then applied that knowledge gained to actively engage in policy advocacy and stakeholder collaboration and submitted formal recommendations to the Rwanda Central Bank. The group pushed for improved pricing transparency and clearer terms within digital services to help consumers.
Carmem Jočas, projects analyst at the Idec (Brazil), echoed this feedback. The Accelerator “fostered our organisation to do the best work that we can,” she said. “We have improved our understanding of the digital finance landscape across the organisation. While the technical team knows everything - for me, the communications and other teams, we dived into the issues on a deep level, used resources to engage and now know how to address root causes.”
The Accelerator has also helped boost the financial literacy of individual consumers. By February last year, it had enabled awareness and education campaigns that reached over 100,000 consumers around the globe. The Consumer Council of Fiji (CCF) alone engaged almost 11,000 individuals in one year, promoting financial literacy and consumer rights in digital finance.
Building even better connections
A major triumph of the Accelerator has been cultivating stronger connections between consumer groups and leading financial stakeholders. Nearly all our Members say that their communication with regulators has been boosted, takes place more frequently and is better quality thanks to the initiative. Eighty-two percent reported that this has led to improved collaboration and one-third have credited it with having helped them influence new policies or key reforms in their countries.
The Consumer Council of Fiji is just one example of how the collaboration enabled by the Accelerator is making fair digital finance a reality. As well as its literacy workshops, thanks to support from the Accelerator, it was able to carry out in depth research into digital finance and the challenges Fijians were facing – research that it would later present to prominent financial organisations.
Seema Shandil, chief executive of the Council, said: “Many Fijians fear that their mobile money wallets are not safe due to the high number of scams occurring across Fiji. These scams have increased in recent years, coinciding with the growing use of digital financial services.”
She added that the research “revealed that concerns about scams are a significant reason some rural residents are hesitant to adopt digital financial services”.
The Council took its recommendations directly to the inbox of the Fijian Government. It urged policymakers to prioritise internet infrastructure for rural and maritime areas and called for a review of Fiji’s legislation on scams, with a focus on transactions via online platforms. Its advocacy led to the establishment of the Financial Services Ombudsman under the Reserve Bank of Fiji in the country’s 2024/2025 national budget, a major feat for strengthening financial dispute resolution mechanisms across the sector.
The team subsequently connected with a powerful set of Fijian financial institutions, including ANZ Bank’s Financial Literacy Program, Westpac Bank, Bank of the South Pacific, Bred Bank of Fiji and Kontiki Finance, to establish direct pathways to resolve consumer concerns. Impressively, the group has also developed an ongoing collaboration with major mobile wallet service providers, Vodafone and Digicel, to accelerate addressing consumer complaints.
Driving real change for consumers from national to global
The examples above show just how crucial increased confidence and collaboration are for meaningful change. Not only is this important at the national level but when applied internationally consumer rights can gain more recognition, become more effective and often be – quickly - implemented.
Training via the Accelerator has empowered Members to engage in high-level global forums, such as the South-South Regulator Dialogue and the OECD FinConet sessions. Over the past three years we have partnered with the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) as part of our international influencing work and to give consumer groups in low and middle-income countries a voice on the global stage, such as in its advisory panel report on women in Central Africa. UNCDF attested that the Accelerator has “amplified [its] impact on financial inclusion by promoting safer, more inclusive, and consumer-centric digital financial services”.
Through this partnership we’ve seen change on a national level. Members in Uganda were invited to provide consumer-led guidance during engagements with the Central Bank and subsequently contributed to the improvement of the 2011 Financial Consumer Protection Guidelines. Their work focussed on plugging gaps, such as the need for a dedicated consumer protection ombudsman and regulatory frameworks for digital lenders and micro-consumer disputes.
Consumer advocacy groups are being increasingly recognised as vital bridges between vulnerable consumers and multilateral organisations. Excitingly, Accelerator Members have been able play an important part in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) and G20’s High-Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection. In 2022, they offered OECD invaluable first-person insights on the challenges facing consumers, resulting in the creation of new principles on Access and Inclusion and Quality Financial Products. Such principles are used by country governments worldwide to make finance truly inclusive, to help see that financial products and providers tend to the needs of the most vulnerable.
The future of the Fair Digital Finance Accelerator
The impact of the Accelerator over the past three years is a source of great optimism for the future of digital finance. We can now go further.
To build upon the confidence, collaboration and change we have influenced so far, we can enter a new stage of accelerating fairness in finance. Looking back to our past success we can only imagine how much we could build over the next three years – to deepen relationships across the digital finance sphere, arm Members with valuable, up-to-date information to tackle rapidly changing issues and to promote their initiatives and ongoing accomplishments.