Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen.

It’s a pleasure to be here, and especially exciting to be speaking at a hackathon, because many of the challenges we face in financial services will ultimately be solved by people willing to rethink how things have traditionally been done.

One of the greatest opportunities technology presents is democratizing access to finance.

Traditionally, access to credit has depended heavily on whether you have a formal income or collateral, and ultimately, whether a financial institution knows enough about you to take a risk on you.

That has excluded millions of potentially creditworthy people.

And financial inclusion matters because access to finance can change lives.

For a small business owner, it can mean buying more stock or expanding a business. For a young entrepreneur, it can mean turning an idea into a business. And for a family, it can mean being able to deal with an unexpected expense without having to sell an asset or depend on friends and family.

Ultimately, access to finance gives people more choices and more opportunity.

Technology is helping us provide that access.

Today, digital transactions, payment behaviour and other data can help us understand customers who were previously almost invisible to the formal financial system.

Technology also reduces the cost of serving customers. You no longer necessarily need a branch, paperwork and days of manual assessment to provide a relatively small loan.

At Forms Capital, we’ve seen this firsthand.

Through technology and partnerships, we have been able to extend credit digitally to a large number of Ghanaians, including people who may previously have struggled to access formal credit.

But what excites me most is not simply the number of loans. It is what those loans enable people to do, and what technology makes possible.

We can reach customers digitally, use data to make better credit decisions, disburse and collect electronically,and every transaction helps us understand the customer better.

And we are only at the beginning.

With better data and better digital infrastructure, we can increasingly move from asking:

What collateral does this person have?

to:

What does the data tell us about their ability and willingness to repay?”

That could transform access to finance for young people, informal workers, small businesses and SMEs across Africa.

But technology must go hand in hand with responsible lending, consumer protection and good risk management.

Because financial inclusion isn’t simply about giving people loans. It’s about giving people the financial tools to improve their lives and participate more fully in the economy.

The opportunity, therefore, is not simply to digitize finance. It is to use technology to see, understand and responsibly finance people that the traditional financial system has struggled to serve.

And at a hackathon like this, some of the people who will build the next generation of those solutions may very well be sitting in this room.

Thank you.