Citi moves to ‘market’ financial inclusion

Is corporate citizenship marketing?

Regina Seow, managing director and head for citizenship of Citi Asia, conceded that “at the highest level, it is.” But she quickly added that it was not a marketing of products.

The Citi Foundation, she said, had a very clear mandate in pursuing its corporate citizenship initiatives: “No promotion, no selling of products.”

Citi has been promoting financial inclusion as part of its corporate citizenship initiative and organized the recent inaugural Asia-Pacific Financial Inclusion Summit in Makati City, which was keynoted by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor Amando Tetangco Jr.

Seow said, in “marketing” financial inclusion, Citi “is really trying to make a change” and “the mission is progress.”

Financial inclusion, as Tetangco, pointed out in his speech, aimed to bring the benefits of banking services and products to over a billion people in Asia Pacific that remained unserved by financial institutions. Part of efforts to reduce poverty, financial inclusion aimed to give the poor access to institutional resources for their financing needs and, among other things, reduce reliance on informal money sources that charge exorbitant fees and interests.

Tetangco, who urged summit participants “to craft an action plan   that would help make the Asia Pacific a better place,” said marginalized sectors had to get access to financial services that would improve their economic status and innovative products that were affordable.

While target beneficiaries of its financial inclusion efforts were not likely to become clients, at least not in the near future, of Citi, a global financial institution identified with big accounts and high-profile customers, Seow said, “Their (unserved population’s) financial inclusion will enable the economy to progress, which benefits everybody.”

She said financial inclusion “helps Citi achieve its goal of enabling progress.”

Financial inclusion, Seow said, evolved from the original Citi initiative of financial education and literacy, which aimed to teach different sectors prudent and more productive money management skills. One such initiative was an award-winning partnership with the Inquirer’s Learning section—a series of feature articles on financial literacy to teach high school students how to husband their resources.

Seow said Citi was the first global bank to go into financial education.

She said, with developments in digital technology, they were looking for ways to reach the “more mature population” and trying to identify “influencers.” They had to determine, for instance, if adults were more likely to learn from their children or their peers.

“We are looking at people around them,” Seow said, and were trying to get nongovernment organizations (NGOs) to work with them.

Aneth Lim, director for public affairs and corporate citizenship of Citi Philippines, said they were also trying to get NGOs to work with other donors. Financial inclusion “is an advocacy that even [ordinary] people can get involved with,” she said.

Seow said they were working to strengthen financial inclusion programs and sharing with other countries what they learned from others. They were encouraging dialogues, exchange of ideas and discussing issues like the use of technology, how to raise programs, etc.

“We are not after numbers, but behavioral change, qualitative not quantitative accomplishments,” Seow said. Even with groups they were already working with, she said the pressure was for the organizations to come up with something innovative to change behavior.

Yibin Chu, Citi vice president for corporate citizenship in Asia Pacific, said what they wanted to know was how people were using products and services to improve their lives. “Were they able to raise incomes, improve asset preservation, [acquire] micro-insurance? We want them to build and preserve assets,” he said.

Seow commended the Philippines for being first in the region and third in the world in financial inclusion efforts.

Tetangco said financial inclusion was critical to “inclusive growth and poverty alleviation in the Philippines.” He said “the 1.2 billion people who remain unserved in [Asia Pacific] represent a billion compelling reasons” to pursue the goal of financial inclusion.

He identified three elements needed to overcome challenges and achieve financial inclusion goals: Research and measurement, purposeful action and innovation informed by research and convergence of objectives and actions across domestic, regional and international arenas.

Tetangco said financial inclusion program should ensure that “economic growth generates benefits all the way down to bottom-of-the pyramid.”

Organizers of the financial inclusion summit were, aside from Citi Foundation, the Financial Times (FT) and the Foundation for Development Cooperation. BSP and the Banking with the Poor Network were host partners.

Aftab Ahmed, chief executive officer for Citi Philippines, said, the summit “underscores our support of the government’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion that was launched earlier this year by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.”

Welcoming delegates, Shengman Zhang, Citi Asia Pacific chair, said the summit was timely, following the adoption by world leaders of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “[F]inancial inclusion is prominently acknowledged as an important enabler of key Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.

Zhang said globalization, digitization and urbanization called for the re-evaluation of the development and delivery of programs and financial products and services and the exploration of new opportunities and technologies.

About 500 business, government and community stakeholders participated in discussions on how financial inclusion efforts in the region could be scaled up and made more accessible.

The summit was a consolidation of the region’s two leading forums—the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit and the Asia Microfinance Forum.