The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> LUCA BELLI: Fantastic. Excellent. All right. So I think we can get started. First of all, let me share a little bit of update on our agenda. This session was supposed to be moderated by the...oh, yes. If we can ‑‑ if we can also have the online participants on screen, that would be fantastic.
So while we wait for the online participants to be put on screen, let me provide a little bit of update for our agenda.
We ‑‑ this session was meant to be moderated by the organiser of the session, Hannah Draper, that unfortunately had a last‑minute impediment. So I will be taking over the moderation. My name is Luca Belli, professor at FGV Law School where I direct the Centre for Technology and Society at FGV.
I was supposed to be a speaker of this panel, but I will also moderate it. Together with me, Alexandre Barbosa, who is here with us, a researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute of the Berlin University of Arts.
And with us online we will have Saroja Sundaram, who is executive director of Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group, which is a 39‑year‑old civil society organisation based in Chennai, India.
And we will have Ritul Gaur, policy advisor for the Digital Impact Alliance, DIA.
To start our conversation, let me just provide a little bit of introduction to the topic, and then I will directly provide a little bit of insight from Brazil and India. And then I will pass the floor for ‑‑ to my colleague and friend Alexandre, and then we will have in order Ritul Gaur, and Saroja.
What are we speaking with about we speak about digital public infrastructure or DPI? Become a very hot topic since the G20 in India last year where the Indian presence did a very interesting job in bringing to the international floor this concept of DPI that have been implemented, debated, and started in India for almost a decade, in the context of the India stack, the digital transformation plan of India.
And then they are spreading quite rapidly around the world with very good examples also from other country, especially developing countries. We will see that Brazil has been not only experimenting but implementing with certain success, some of this DPIs. And so DPIs are digital systems that are interoperable, they are designed to be supposedly secure, and they are built on open standards, on open specifications.
So that they allow the provisions of public service, but also private services through these infrastructure, these digital infrastructure that is public. Right? But also this conception of public really depends ‑‑ it is not universally defined what is public. And the difference that I'm going to illustrate between India and Brazil actually provide a very good illustration of this.
Brazil has become very well known in DPI debates for PICs. It's digital public infrastructure for payments. So usually we ‑‑ there are three main categories of these digital public infrastructures. Digital I.D.s, digital payments, and personal data content managers. India has been experimenting and implementing them for several years. There are three of them. And actually is now in the process of implementing another one. The online digital network for comments; the digital network for online commerce, which is a sort of grand bazaar online built on a digital public infrastructure.
So we will see that there are several types of digital infrastructure. But these specific workshop aims at discussing financial infrastructure through DPI. The use of DPI to build public infrastructure, public infrastructure for payments; right?
And so here my initial considerations that I'm blending with this introduction is that we need to have a systemic approach to this to understand how they function, what are their benefits, but also what are their limits.
And I think that the cases from Brazil and India illustrate very well ‑‑ and I wrote a paper about this last year for the G20 in India, for T20, actually, and we called with Hannah Draper, the organiser of this session a prestructure policy brief on digital infrastructure. Emphasizing the digital public infrastructure, especially DPIs for payment could be a very good example of good digital sovereignty. A country, can be not necessarily a country, could be also a region or municipal government, could be group of researches, developing it and regulating it in a way that is in the interest and put forward the interest, at least should put forward the interest of the local community. Could be the municipal community. We have very good example in Brazil, for example the city where I live, Rio, has a very good digital public infrastructure for taxis. There is a competitor of Uber, which is a digital public infrastructure for taxis. So you can hail taxi through a digital public infrastructure built by the municipality.
But again, here we start to ‑‑ if we want to have a systemic approach we start to understand what is the first obstacle. To use DPIs, you need meaningful connectivity. If you are not connected, you cannot use DPI. And I'm speaking about meaningful connectivity, not mere connectivity. Because there is a lot of examples, especially in the global South, of entire countries and population that are connected through ‑‑ still today through zero rating mechanism.
So not meaningful connectivity, but connected only through a very limited selection of apps that are sponsored, typically Meta family of apps, social media. In this case it is ‑‑ even if you have the best possible DPI built by the government, people will not be able to access it.
So the investment in it is thrown into the bin. And that is a very good ‑‑ Brazil is a very good example of this. Because 70% of the population that is now ‑‑ or 80 ‑‑ that is now connected, almost 80 connected to the Internet, only 20% of them they have meaningful connectivity. And so when the ‑‑ the PICs was launched during the pandemic ‑‑ digital infrastructure for payment which was created by the Central Bank. So during the pandemic when everyone was sort of locked down, WhatsApp wanted to launch WhatsApp payments ahead of our digital public infrastructure for payments. And the Brazilian Central Bank suspended the launch of WhatsApp payment for six months because this would have created detrimental effect on privacy protection competition. Because even ‑‑ having WhatsApp a sort of monopoly of connectivity, everyone in Brazil is connected through WhatsApp. But very few are connected to the rest.
So it would have meant if WhatsApp payment had been launched where our system PICs, that everyone would have used WhatsApp. No one would have used PICs. Understanding meaningful connectivity is key. I think this is when India adopted net neutrality in 2006 they prohibited zero rating. Every penal, especially in IGF circa, was a measure for net neutrality, for freedom of expression. But actually it was digital sovereignty measure adopted by India. Because they acknowledge that if they had allowed the entire population to be connected to ‑‑ only to a certain specific set of apps rather than the full Internet, no one would have ever used both locally developed apps and actually digital public infrastructure developed in India. Meaningful connectivity is key.
And when we adopt it, we can also foster competition and increase enormously consumer welfare. Here we enter the core of this ‑‑ of today's discussion. Before PICs in Brazil as in most other developing countries, online payments were only possible through cease sa and master card. So two foreign companies that charge between 3 and 5 percent per every transaction that happens. So the Brazilian consumer has had ‑‑ reverted into its pocket 3 to 5 ‑‑ Brazilian consumers and also sellers of goods or providers or services, they receive directly the ‑‑ thanks to this ‑‑ 3 to 5 percent of what they pay for each transaction into their pockets. So ‑‑ and this money is reverted to the national economy. And few people understand that also Visa and master card over the past ten years they have become big data companies. So ‑‑ most of their income does not come from the 3 to 5 percent but comes from the data, personal data they're collecting about consumers and what they by and when and the profile of building artificial intelligence out of this.
So why and I saying this? Because the benefit is not only a direct benefit for the consumer PICs, it's also an enormous competition boost that ‑‑ competition authority would never have been capable of doing, it broke the duopoly of Visa and master card and put in the picture a very new solution that increased ‑‑ allowed everyone else in the field to build innovation on top of it. And this type of competition measure would never have been possible through traditional regulation. Antitrust authority. And relies on the duality. And we also have to understand DPI. In India this is very present narrative. DPI is a tool of regulation.
So not regulating by sanctioning, by creating a law, but regulating by creating an alternative. And this is a very powerful tool, an aspect of DPI. Of course there are limits. Here I won't speak too much. But a final point I want to stress that the Brazilian experience, in my perspective, has improved the ‑‑ the Indian payment, additional public infrastructure, UPI, because in India this has been managed by a non‑for‑profit corporation, the national payment corporation of India, and being not a public entity, as in Brazil, which is managed by the Brazilian Central Bank it's much less transparent and accountable. If you try to file a request.
They will reply to you, I'm sorry, sir, this is not a public entity. So we are not obliged to reply to you. If I am in Brazil, I ask the Brazilian Central Bank to tell me which data about me you have. Where are you sharing them. They are obliged to reply. And if they don't reply, I can sue them because they're a public body, and they have a public obligation to be transparent and accountable.
But in India, a consumer asks to the national payment corporation of India, tell me which data about me do you have and with whom do you share them, they can perfectly reply to you, sorry, sir, this is not a public body, we are not bound by law to reply to you. So it's interesting to understand also the institutional context behind it. Of course there is a rational who have a non‑for‑profit building this. You can be suspicious of bureaucracies being very effective in building services. They are not ‑‑ it's not really their cup of tea. So they might have problem. But it's also represents risks.
Now, not speak too much, let me give directly the floor to my friend, Alexandre Barbosa. And expand the conversation to our Indian friends.
>> COSTA BARBOSA ALEXANDRE: Thank you. Hello, everyone. Unfortunately, we don't have Hannah. And also Jordan representing co‑develop. Co‑develop is one of the main organizations behind this recent advancements of DPI worldwide. I mean, not speaking from a governmental perspective, but also from private and philanthropic services sectors.
I will speak mainly regarding PICs and the Brazilian scenario. Also considering all the dimensions beyond the regulatory and design aspects of payment systems. But I'd like to emphasize first, as this quite resent as Luca clearly expressed here, boon of DPIs, led by the G20 discussions in India, followed by Brazil this year. And likely to take place at South African presidency, just started a few weeks ago. So representing this EBA, India, South Africa and ‑‑ dialogues, structure kind of setting the scene for how DPIs are really taking place. Especially in developing context.
I think it's clear how DPI brings to the table the role of this take when we think of technology development. And as an academic here, I must emphasize that, despite the policy international level, there is this ‑‑ Ritul was going to talk about it probably. The sense of around these three major DPIs that Luca mentioned, it's worth highlighting the physical or tangible material dimensions of the infrastructure.
I always want to talk about digital public infrastructure. Where this data has been possessed, who controls this data processing, and structures, where they are located and so on.
Undeed PICs succeeded ‑‑ it enables payment 24/7. Overcame debit cards and cash the very first ‑‑ the main payment method in Brazil few weeks ago, over 70% of the Brazilian population uses PICs. It reached 10 days ago 250 million transactions in a single day. Accounting for over 120 billion Brazil HAIs. And it's part a set of regulatory and policy measures within the national security ‑‑ the national council for monetary council that was updating the financial systems the early 2010s.
And I completely agree with Luca that demonstrates that DPI can be a popular and in Latin American perspective, popular here is mainly linked to massive, with massive efficient, inclusive and accessible alternative to private solutions route raising concerns about market concentration and implication the consumer rights and choices.
And also regarding somehow to consumer rights, but more in a macro level, it's the Brazilian Central Bank, the institution who develops, regulates PICs, stated that in September in Brazil, the Bosa family beneficiaries ‑‑ the may ‑‑ the major social protection, cash Rahn, recognized worldwide, spent 3 billion AIs ‑‑ sorry, billion in the B. In bats, programme, softwares, in Lagos. I think the way DPI can enable better policies and also better comprehension of how the economic and socioeconomic development of the country is taking place.
Additionally not going to ‑‑ to dip on that. But it's also covered ‑‑ debate that we are taking place at Jevi, with Luca, we can also think of the other way around the artificial intelligence ‑‑ properly. Yes?
(Mic cutting in and out) and also the other way around, artificial intelligence to DPI. Particularly in terms of embedding AI systems in a broader sense, also considering automated decisions softwares. The last week a Brazilian PrivateBank, new bank announced they're going to be the very first PICs with embedded AI, exactly to integrate ‑‑ to interpret clients' priorities and intentions and also enable this automated transactions. And also using AI to detect risky data patterns and so on. But without an explicit risk impact assessment of this combination of AI and DPI.
So it's something that we need to take a look and forward implementation of the present new ‑‑ anticipate AI regulation last week.
And also concluding here, I like to provide a reflection on the broader view on digital literacy and financial literacy. This convergence that also can be pushed, enabled through DPI implementations and regulations.
When I speak here about digital literacy I'm speaking in the broader sense. Brazil developed BMCC, it's a national common curricular base that has among its main skills, competence as pillars, both critical thinking and digital skills. So not only being able to ‑‑ to use a software or digital tool itself, but knowing where this tool is ‑‑ has been developed and who controls it. It's also key here.
And also been ‑‑ BMCC also compares different aspects of financial literacy, such as it mentioned different times in the social consumption and so on. There's also room for thinking of this convergence of these two already in place that can be also adopted in other countries and scenarios to ‑‑ this convergence on financial and digital literacy through DPI regulations.
And but for this to actually take place, financial DPI promoters should also be promoters of educational DPIs. Right? We also launched a T20 policy brief specifically regarding the need of developing this DPI, as far as education, not treating them as just sectoral application of DPI but actually a key to promote this ‑‑ just mentioned, digital critical, digital literacy. And so on.
And I have more ‑‑ (inaudible) thank you, Luca.
>> LUCA BELLI: We can directly pass the floor to our online speakers. First we have Ritul Gaur. Please, Ritul. The floor is yours.
>> RITUL GAUR: Hi, Luca. Hi Ali, can you hear me?
>> LUCA BELLI: Yes. Can we put Ritul on screen?
>> RITUL GAUR: That would be great.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you.
>> RITUL GAUR: Should I start my address?
>> LUCA BELLI: You can start. We can hear you very well. Our remote participation assistants are trying to have you on screen as well.
Yes, we can see you now. Very well. Go ahead.
>> RITUL GAUR: Perfect. Thank you so much. It's unfortunate that I'm not there. But right near in the third row is my colleague, Abraham. So if you guys feel that there is anything that I said which is wrong or controversial, please catch him. And I'm sure he will have more answers.
So I think ‑‑ I'm going to start my address on something that is interesting I came across on ‑‑ now X, on X few days back. As the founder, co‑founder of my first job, Think Tang tank. Who recently Xed I think there's a need for a new consumer rights movement. Consumers have become so disempowered that there's almost no way to seek redress. And public policy has forgotten the consumer.
And with that it is so great to be on a panel where we're actually talking about consumer and DPI in the same length and breadth. I've been in this for over two years now but haven't really come across this in the same breath. So I'm going to broadly talk about DPI first and then dive into what does Indian detail landscape look like, particularly DPI but and then what does it mean to be a consumer in that sense. So Luca and Ally talked about the benefits of DPI. We have seen how it's been in the broad Brazilian, a lot of African context. It has empowered users with giving them pa identity, allowed to transact in a fast and secure way and most importantly the storing of data and credentials to then avail a lot of other services.
And unlike most other countries, India, Brazil ‑‑ India, Brazil, Singapore, et cetera, have done significantly well. But when we talk about India, it has not been an exactly easy journey, and a much remains to be done in our digital journey.
To lay out what needs to be done, I think when we look at the Indian DPI story, we all know it works. And we've seen that well.
But we don't know what happens the day it does not work. The day my transaction fails, the day my authentication fails. We honestly do not know what is the grievance with addressing ‑‑ because it's layered through so many things. There's payment service provider, then there's an app on top of it and then there's a grievance by somebody else. So we don't really know what happens when this does not work.
And I think it's a big learning for countries what designing, who are just building out their systems, think of it from get‑go, that your populations have enough faith that when things turn ‑‑ do not work out to be, what really happens. So broadly laying out some challenges of UPI and what does it constitute. Constitute 80% of digital payments in 2024 in India. It is fantastic, a high ‑‑ there are engineered solutions which include small voice box that pops up every time a small payment is made. But at the same time UPI is also a financial crime hot spot. To the extent we don't even know what we're talking about here. There was a recent study in India which highlight the challenges ‑‑ out of the six app, survey, only four had a grievance address in app addressing mechanism.
And only one ‑‑ India is a huge country with many, many languages. And only one out of four had tutorials or FAQs in their native languages. So essentially there's a lot of grievance for addressing mechanisms are there, but only in English for a population that does not understand English.
So some very interesting finding, more ‑‑ approach the mechanism by men, than women. Apps have almost no support. All the FAQs are in English. Navigation issues. Grievance address is hidden across multiple layers. It's actually very difficult to find where it is. It's not on your premiere real estate where you can click and then actually go to it. Documentation required sometimes the complaint mechanism is such that you can only launch for predefined complaint. You can't really write your issue. So you have to pick from what's out there. You can't really write.
So often it does not even capture all the issues and modalities. You can do it by voice, text. Et cetera. You can stream. Some of these apps didn't have a mechanism to track your ticket for the grievance that you had for it.
And now with this landscape, on top of it, the digital financial literacy, around 27% in India. UPI related frauds contribute to what 55% of the complaints to our national crime records bureau.
Can you believe it's ‑‑ one third of our complaints to the national crime records bureau is computer related financially complaints. Incidents of domestic fraud in UPI rose by 85% as compared to last financial year; 85% jump. So ‑‑ and I think if you look at it, it's not just the payments have become easier, the payment system has become sophisticated, it is that the fraudsters have become really smart. Like they can clone a screen, they can clone an app. They can let you click on a particular thing from far away.
Every day, in fact in my ‑‑ in my hometown, a tier 3 city, I hear from somebody losing money, et cetera. So this has become all too very common.
Now I think it would be unfair to not talk about solutions. So I think from a very broad point of view the two overall objectives on financial sector regulations provide adequate consumer protection, and protection against system risk. So consumer protection would depend on the speed with which fraud is detected, which is extremely important, and at the speed at which judicial process, or whatever resolution, arbitration takes place, to make it work.
And clearly there have been some steps in India's case which are working towards it, there are central bank has integrated an ombudsman scheme which has integrated all ombudsman so any complaint which is unresolved within 30 days they can take it up to the ombudsman. In the payment system version line‑up they have included online dispute resolution. So people don't have to go to court for the smallest of the court cases, because court cases in India are mew humungous, they go on for years and years and people don't really have an out if they actually get into a litigation affair.
But sadly, much has not moved on this. There are a lot of other use cases for DPIs as Ally was talking about, essentially a big bazaar has integrated online dispute resolution. That has not happened in the case of DPI. Various platforms et cetera, launched by different ministry to track and report what kind of financial crimes are happening. There is a national help line that has been launched, 41930 where you can report fraud and the central bank has launched a central bank fraud registry which keeps track of all the frauds and circulate across it all network participants that this is happening. Some updates, the 1930 help line has been getting 67,000 calls every day.
67 calls for frauds every day.
The central bank tracker of the different complaints, the dashboard has over 1.1 million complaints on the ‑‑ fraud, including for different channels. So I think there is some things which the state has been trying to do. There is no overarching ‑‑ we don't have a data production rules out yet. We have legislation but no rule the out yet so is the consumer aware of that root? We don't have an overarching financial sector regulation which protects the consumer, but we have these small bits of schemes which allows the consumer to be protected. If you were to ask me the top three things we should focus on in order to make consumer the focus of robust financial DPI in India, I think the first would be work on ODR, online dispute resolution is a good mechanism. Not go to court but find a wait out where the dispute can be resolved and the consumer can get a faster recourse to justice.
Simplify user experience. I think all the apps regardless of whichever app you use for UPI transaction should have a similar kind of experience in reporting a grievance. A fraud, a financial transaction misplacing. Because if every app has a different mechanism it's very difficult for a large literate ‑‑ not financially literate population to go and resolve for that. So make sure it is a consistent experience throughout all apps. And I think more importantly than not, which is where I think a role of a lot of other players come in. The telecom, et cetera, include fraud detection. If my ‑‑ the way to actually identify and report fraud is easy, then if there could be tags, et cetera, if other entities can also loop in and make it a robust way that fraud detection becomes easy, crowd sourcing of fraud detection, suspicious activities can be tracked and reported, I think that could lead for a robust financial DPI with the consumer at the centre.
That's about it. Over to you guys.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much. The booming consumer fraud in DPI which clearly is an issue that must be addressed with farther and more seriousness.
Now speaking about redress in terms of how can consumers try to cope with this kind of unfortunate situations and more, we have Saroja Sundaram, who has been dealing with this in other digital literacy issues that can be also plugged into this discussion for some years. So please, Saroja, the floor is yours.
>> SAROJA SUNDARAM: Thank you, Luca. I think my friend Rutul has covered most of the conference sector we are phasing on the ground. And as he rightly mentioned, there are several positive aspects to this which has been ‑‑ which was covered by him actually.
So we recently did a study of around 2,000 consumers. Users of digital financial services from the local areas. So the findings were actually quite interesting because most of the people, even street vendors today use UPI systems. Digital transactions that way has penetrated to the lowest level and like every one seems to enjoy using it because it fit ‑‑ its convenience. There are challenges as pointed out by Rutul, I think it is a closer platform and especially for rural areas there are specific challenges and most of the ‑‑ like the country is ‑‑ the citizens are from these areas.
And so it's very important for the regulator and the government agencies to actually look at the ground scenario on what is actually happening on the ground. How consumers are like ‑‑ the regulations, the policies that they frame, how effectively reaches the last mile. It's something that they need to assess I think before they ‑‑ access to actually see how they could stem the implementation of their policies and their regulations so that consumers stand to benefit. Even the ‑‑ from the remotest area of the country, stand to benefit.
So Luca, as you pointed out, in India, again connectivity, as you ‑‑ again, as you mentioned, mindful connectivity, meaningful connectivity is very important, I think. Because network connectivity in rural areas appears to be a challenge. So UPI transactions, chances of double transaction and then difficulty in getting the money back, all these are some of the challenges that resaw when we just spoke with the consumers. Because the Internet connectivity is intermittent or very poor. So they have challenges there.
And also the other concern as Ritul pointed out, is about the ‑‑ people don't know where to complain actually. Even the first step as to where to go into the app, they know to make a transaction. So it's only like a pure code scan or just enter the number and just the transaction is through. But then to make a complaint, how to register a complaint, and how to take it forward in case someone helps them with registering a complaint, to take them to the next level in case they don't get there, what happens?
And again, they don't have the content in the macular level. That proves to be a challenge. Especially from a country like India with multiple languages, it's a very difficult for consumers actually. So that is another challenge that consumers don't know how to deal with.
And digital literacy is very limited. So we need to have customized and tailor made literacy programmes for consumers. Only then ‑‑ and need to be continued engagement. And only then consumers will know what they're up to and how they can get issues addressed.
And I want to say just a few steps that should be taken to improve the situation. Actually, from the various stakeholders, first is actually about accessibility and transparency. When you talk about mechanisms, they should be easy to understand and should be accessible to consumers. And transparency about the process, about the timelines, about the eligibility criteria, and all these should be readily available to the consumer so that it builds a trust, consumer trust.
And user friendly ‑‑ the platform should be user friendly. That is also very important. So consumers should be easily ready ‑‑ readily able to file complaints, track the status of their case, and receive guidance. And any kind of complaint they should be able to upload. Or inform someone about ‑‑ not everyone will be familiar with the typing or writing.
So they should be able to ‑‑ there should be some other process by which they could actually record their complaint so that ‑‑ and they should have this ‑‑ support as well. And clear communication actually. Provide the consumers about clear communication about their rights, the steps in the process, and the outcomes should be available to the consumers.
Similarly, timely and effective dispute resolution is very important. If that is not there, time won't ‑‑ if it does not there, then it is going to be very difficult for consumers, which is happening today unfortunately. And we neat alternative dispute resolution also. Under the consumer pow text law we have mediation as a protection for consumers actually to seek redress. And I think in India, the Indian consumer affairs is actively promoting in ought the commissions. Mediation centres are going to be made available so the consumers can, say, get redress through mediation.
Similarly something like this online, some alternative dispute resolution mechanism should be available for consumers so that they're table to quickly seek redress for their issues.
And compensation also. If the consumer is entitled to compensation or reimbursement, then that should also be processed quickly. So that they are not ‑‑ they don't ‑‑ they're not harassed for it. They have already lost their money and they should not be harassed for that. We don't have certain regulations in ‑‑ it's not that there's nothing at all. We do have ‑‑ when it comes to online transactions, there is the zero liability that is there. There are situations where the consumer is totally responsible. Limited liability consumers. All these are in place. But then it has to be time bound. What about the ‑‑ redress mechanism? They should not be further harassed. And the financial institutions also have a role to play. They need to be actually more proactive to ensure that the citizens ‑‑ if they face a problem, their issues are addressed. They should come forward to actually help consumers in such scenarios, instead of actually admittedly going on the defensive.
This is what happens. So this is a challenge that needs to be addressed. And ombudsman. So in India we have this body, it's supposed to be an independent body, but unfortunately it isn't, it acts as an eye ‑‑ it's an arm of the regulator. And so it's ‑‑ it's like not every consumer will be able to easily approach the ombudsman's office. So this is another thing, they have to be independent. They need to be ‑‑ they need to stay away from the regulator and ‑‑ and they should not be housed inside the regulators' office. Which intimidating a common man, actually. So I think that is something that ‑‑ that we should have ‑‑ that they should do separately and they handle issues separately so that consumers feel confident and trust the regulator, trust the ombudsman's office to go and register, display their complaint. You cannot register a complaint before the ombudsman directly.
So you need to exhaust all the other avenues like approaching the branch or the certificate have I provider directly. And then that is this internal ombudsman mechanism where they can state their complaint and a next step they can approach this integrated ombudsman who is available for the consumers. But then it's very important that they are independent so that there is no bias.
And another important thing that I feel is very important is the monitoring mechanism that needs to be in place. I think it's very important to continuously assess the effectiveness of these mechanisms by collecting feedback from consumers. When I say consumers, the different category of consumers, urban consumers, rural consumers, businesses, the bigger companies and also the small vendors on the streets. To everyone we should take ‑‑ talking and taking feedback on a regular basis. Base regular audit the and monitoring can ensure that the system remains responsive to the evolving challenges.
And prove to be consumer friendly. So yeah, these are some of the solutions I think I would like to state. And when it comes to digital literacy, I think there are several awareness programmes that are happening, several awareness materials that regulator has come out with. And it just ‑‑ available on their website. And some programmes happen bizarrely here and there. But I think we need to actually move from this situation to a more robust, more dedicated customized digital literacy programmes should be developed. Targeting the different stakeholders. So that consumers are ‑‑ as Ritul mentioned, the frauds that are happening. People are taken completely unaware. They don't even know what is happening. And just like that, they lose their money. Then it's a big struggle and many a time you don't get your money back.
This is the ground reality. So I think it's very important to see how we actually educate at least to that extent. There are situations that go beyond control, but then there are situations where it could be the consumer's fault and they will educate them and they know their rights as a consumer.
So I think we need to organise these workshops and training programmes, it should be a regular phenomenon. And of course we have the online platforms, social media, where we should be actually reaching out to consumers. And there are several other ways also, street plays and other ‑‑ in rural ‑‑ for rural consumers through those medium, board games and things like that, where we can reach out to school children. Where we actually ‑‑ we educate the ‑‑ them on digital literacy and also engage through social media and committee as I mentioned.
And also incorporation of real life scenarios. We could give examples, real life stories on how people lost money in case studies, including them in our campaigns. So people are ‑‑ know actually how you could be ‑‑ one could be cheated. In this space.
So this actually will help tailor made literacy programmes are very important for consumers to ‑‑ for them to understand what is the concern around the space and how they need to be careful.
Digital lending is another major problem actually. Many people are losing ‑‑ been threatened actually. I ‑‑ when we were talking to consumers, especially women, they offer 10,000, 20,000 small money without any documents. So women who are in the running small ‑‑ or farmers, for some families these ‑‑ they go and take this money without informing any other family member.
I happen to come across these two cases where this lady ‑‑ in one case, this lady took the money. 10,000 Rupees, small amount only. She borrowed this money without any papers for some personal use. Later what happened was the fellow started threatening her, telling her that he'll be posting her photo on social media and all. And so he kept taking money from her. She paid up to 60,000 Rupees for the 10,000 she had taken. And then beyond that also when he started demanding money, only then she realised that ‑‑ she ‑‑ she couldn't do anything more and she went and told her husband about it. And then they went to the police and these things happen.
So I think this space needs to be regulated. It has to be addressed. Because there are many ‑‑ especially women, many people who are suffering because of this digital lending problem.
So yeah. With this I would like to conclude. And if there are any questions, I'll be happy to take. Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much for this. I'm sure there will be questions for considerations from the audience we have here people in the floor that have been with us for the entire workshop. So if we have any considerations, questions, or even personal experiences that you would like to share from the ‑‑ understand to what extent DPI can be consumer centric or even not. Or bring examples from your own countries. This is the moment actually where you can do so. So if you want ‑‑ if anyone in the audience here in the room wants to contribute to the discussion, please feel free to raise your hand and add your two cents.
Or two Rupes.
Yes, sir?
Can we bring the mic to this gentleman here?
Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. Thank you for the nice discussion and the nice presentations.
I really like the way both speakers have managed to frame the consumer centricity demand of DPI. And Luca, the experience of Brazil in terms of PICs as well. Many countries in Africa are looking at the experience of PICs, which is the public part of public driven DPI development process. Which is quite essential in terms of putting proper safeguards on time from the onset. Some countries are going deeper into the DPI development without proper safeguards being in place, policy and regulatory process being in place. PICs has a lot to share from that perspective. One potential practice for consumer centricity of DPI in Africa ‑‑ and I would like to mention the country.
I come from, which is Ethiopia, in the process of identity development; right ‑‑ ‑ for extra momentum. The level of identity fraud available or identity fraud attacks that banks in the country were facing. The major challenge being the lack of digitally identifiable information in Ethiopia. Process and the amount of money banks were losing annually was huge to the extent it has driven them to invest in early involvement technology that was supportive of the government's partnership and the government's plan for digital identification, development.
And this has actually been sign of A, commitment, and B, a collaborative work between public‑private partnership for DPI development and it's a solid case. Still it has a challenge of having a proper safeguard but for me it's a major indicator of consumer centricity whereby identity fraud is not only affecting the banks but also account holders and transactions. Creating a fertile ground to be consumer centric infrastructure system. The challenge being ‑‑ something I would like the other speakers to also address, is the fact that DPI approach is to have a whole of government process.
So usually there's a single tract siloed upward of implements DPI without putting major safeguards. That is a major challenge payment systems are facing at this time. There's a need to create integration, interoperability but from the onset, beginning, issues related to safeguard. For me it's a comment and a question. The first is the fact that A, yes there are multiple examples of consumer centricity, from the design. From the intention of DPI system. But then again there's a need to actually bring all these DPI components together, I.D. payment data. From the early onset, onward to make sure that they integrate and work closely in partnership.
Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Those are excellent comments. Do we have any other here? Otherwise as we ‑‑ yes, we have another gentleman here. Yes, please go ahead. Introduce yourself. Yes.
>> JAMES SAVAY (?): My name is James Savay. I'm from Bloggers Association of Kenya. Yeah, I'm from Kenya.
I ‑‑ I just want to make a contribution. It's actually a comment. It's ‑‑ it's quite interesting that you're having this conversation about DPIs being consumer centric because we have ‑‑ we have an opposite experience in Kenya, and that ‑‑ we have actually been trying to, you know, get the government to actually see, you know, basically the point of having some consumer centric. Because what is happening ‑‑ for instance the president will go out there and go to Google or any IT company or TC, or maybe the ministers approach and they have ‑‑ they ‑‑ they have what is called a top‑down approach. So you just have a solution, just dump it on you. And it doesn't work for anyone.
And then also something else, instead of going, let's say, the Brazil way where ‑‑ let's say the regulator comes up with an idea and builds it from the ground up, you know, they ‑‑ they just ‑‑ I don't know ‑‑ I don't know how to say this ‑‑ but they just dump this thing that they don't know if it's going to work, and then now they start putting, you know, they start putting sort of plasters, as you go along.
The ‑‑ whatever the ‑‑ I don't know whether it's the gentleman or the lady who said that you know, consumer care and being able to have your issues sorted is, you know ‑‑ is one of the ideal, you know, ways of building up a customer ‑‑ or consumer‑centric DPI.
So when it's top‑down, it's even worse because now when you think about it, they ‑‑ they ‑‑ they actually build ‑‑ they're actually using a system that they have not involved in the stakeholders and most importantly the public. So what you have is just something that doesn't work.
From ‑‑ you know, from a general perspective I feel like maybe ‑‑ maybe what ‑‑ maybe with DPI and especially for countries that are starting ‑‑ that are starting to adopt this, like us, like Kenya, I feel like what you need to start with like policy ‑‑ you have a policy in place, and then I'll build from that. Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank I very much for this excellent comment. It provides me to provide a little bit of clarification. The ‑‑ I want to make clear that the goal of the panel is to assess whether and how DPIs can be consumer centric. But it was none of the speakers intention to argue they are by default consumer centric.
So this last comment is actually very useful to clarify that they can be, and I believe that probably the Brazilian experience is one of the most of the closest to be consumer centric because it is one of the most recent. And so it could learn also from the mistakes of others. I know in Kenya you have NPESA, different from the consumer. And I understand some of the difference how it has been proposed and implemented. So our colleagues from the remote assistance remind us that we have to ‑‑ to wrap up. So I would like to give to our ‑‑ my fellow panelists a final moment to provide their final thoughts.
Maybe some ‑‑ some provocative remarks, final remarks in one minute. Or some hope for the future. Feel free to use these last minutes you have at your disposal as you want. Maybe we Go with Ali and Ritul and Saroja.
>> COSTA BARBOSA ALEXANDRE: Thank you. Definitely the Brazilian experience, should not be just replicated elsewhere. Brazil has a long trajectory in terms of civil society engagement and rights and lieutenant governance and stakeholder and so on. We need to think of the design of DPI, at least at two levels. One as this customization as the financial services provider level. But also at the architectural level. PICs is divided mainly into two. One instant payment system, what was viewed an erratic system of infrastructure. And also the central identifier which enables this portability of keys and so on. But I don't have to ‑‑ to dig on that.
Last I would like to emphasize that PICs has among its structure the PICs volume. Which is also a stakeholder that pays for deciding ‑‑ discussing decision and design. And appreciate again the time here.
And take a look in the UN, DPI safeguards that was launched in September. Provide also interesting insights. Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: Thank you very much, Ali. We go to Ritul and Saroja.
>> RITUL GAUR: Thank you very much. For any government looking forward to pay, one of the most important thing is to build it in open. Every document, everything that's published and open, even if it's pricing, even small ‑‑ and regulation, et cetera. As much as you can allow the documents to be out and open you allow the Civil Society to analyze, criticize, et cetera, and make the feedback about ‑‑ welcome and open. I think building it open is something which is very critical. In India in 2014 they launched something called PLC, which is prelegislative consultation policy. But any legislation, any regulation it has to be out in public for public comments for a minimum of 0 days. Otherwise it cannot pass. So I think something like that which if you're planning to build ‑‑ because it's difficult to involve people like the scale of which democracy is working ‑‑ but if you can at least build it in open, I think you allow for a greater amount of transparency in the system. So yeah. Thank you so much. This was a great experience.
>> LUCA BELLI: Saroja. Please.
>> SAROJA SUNDARAM: Yeah. So I think we need to have an effective monitoring system in place. Especially looking at vulnerable consumers. The concerns like DPI ‑‑ if we are going to have regular audience. Do regular audits then we will know where we stand in terms of ‑‑ government agencies that regulate, where they stand in terms of the implementation of their policies. And this will stand as a feedback for them to actually improve their system so that consumers stand to benefit. This is what I think we need most.
>> LUCA BELLI: Fantastic. And I think with this word of optimism and hope for the future we can close this panel. Thank you very much to all the participants. Very good discussion. And hope you have an excellent time. Thank you.
>> SAROJA SUNDARAM: Thank you.