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Financial inclusion, fintech, and digital currencies

1.1 billion people gained access to bank accounts from 2014 to 2021, but 1.4 billion remain unbanked.

Digital financial inclusion is a critical enabler for poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Access to transaction accounts enabled by ICTs opens pathways to broader financial inclusion, where people and companies can make financial transactions more efficiently and safely, access funds (e.g., payments, credit, and savings), make investments, and cope with economic shocks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also amplified the urgency for digital financial services (DFS) to help reach underserved and vulnerable populations. An ITU webinar series in 2020, recorded and archived on the ITU website, shared insights from various governments and other DFS stakeholders in this regard.

ITU offers platforms to study cybersecurity challenges for digital finance, as well innovations and regulatory challenges brought about by fintech, digital currencies, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.

Security lab

ITU Security Clinics: Offfer guidance to regulators and DFS providers on adopting the DFS Security recommendations developed under FIGI.

ITU's Security Lab for Digital Financial Services can help regulators verify that DFS security best practices are being followed.

The ITU Knowledge Sharing Platform is designed to foster collaboration among regulators and other stakeholders in the development and implementation of security guidelines and best practices for DFS.

Infrastructure vulnerabilities

Security best practices help DFS providers, network operators, and regulators to safeguard the telecommunication channel as well as mobile devices.

Signalling System no.7 vulnerabilities and mitigation measures for DFS transactions
Security analysis of the KaiOS feature phone platform for DFS applications
Recommendation ITU-T Q.3057 “Signalling requirements and architecture for interconnection between trustable network entities"

Consumer protection and trust

Trust in digital finance requires consumer competence; the consideration of the data privacy dimensions of big data and AI and machine learning; and the prevention of unlicensed digital investment schemes (digital ponzi schemes).

Authentication and ID verification

Strong authentication is key to protecting the confidentiality and integrity of digital financial transactions.

Implementation of secure authentication technologies for DFS
Developer resources to implement Recommendation ITU-T X.1277 Fast Identity Online (FIDO) "Universal Authentication Framework"
e-KYC (Know-Your-Customer) innovation use cases within the financial sector

Quality of service

A user’s quality of experience is critical to facilitate the transition from cash to digital financial services. Performance and user-experience metrics play an important role in this evolution.

ITU standards

ITU standards for digital finance address economics and policy, security, blockchain, identity management, and quality of service and user experience.

Recommendation ITU-T D.263 “Costs, charges and competition for mobile financial services"
Recommendation ITU-T Q.3057 “Signalling requirements and architecture for interconnection between trustable network entities”
Technical Report on QSTR-USSD - Low resource requirement, quantum resistant, encryption of USSD messages for use in financial services
Recommendation ITU-T G.1033 "Quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) aspects of digital financial services"
Recommendation ITU-T P.1502 "Methodology for QoE testing of digital financial services"
ITU standards development for distributed ledger technologies and e-services includes work on digital evidence services, digital invoices and smart contracts
ITU standards for identity management inlcude Recommendations ITU-T X.1252, X.1254, X.1277 and X.1278