Dwi'n gafodd. Wel, ddwy'n gilydd i chi, ac rydw i gyda'n gondol yma yn ddafos ar y FFF o'r sefydliadauín o'r ffordd sy'n eu ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd a'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r gondol. Mae'n rydw i gyrdd o'r ffordd o'i'r ffordd o'r ffordd ac o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd. Yn ddwy'n gondol gwelio gloedd. Mae'r cyfnod oes iawn i gyd yn gweithio i'r ffordd fel ymddirionedd a'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod yn ymddirionedd, ond mae'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r ffordd yn ein bod yn cael ei gael ar â'r llyfr o'r rhifn, a'r cyfnod o'r rhifnol yn cael ei gael, oes eich hunain cyfnod i'r BBC yn London, yn ddechrau ffintech ymddirionedd, ond mae'r rwynt i'n West Bengal yn Indiad, I go back every two years and it's almost like a kind of slow motion slideshow and you see the changes in my cousin's lives, the emancipating power of technology to change people's lives and whether it's the subsistence farmers who were only a few decades ago had no access even to the basic democratic information about what the market traded prices for their goods were and get ripped off and impoverished by semi-evil middlemen who now have that market pricing power or whether it's the female entrepreneurs lacking the capital, the ability to borrow the microloans pioneered next all from West Bengal and Bangladesh by Professor Eunice through forums such as these innovations have refracted back not just from the western capital system to developing countries but from developing countries back into the west in less in impoverished areas frankly of countries like my own they're using some of these techniques pioneered in developing world so amazing that these are the sorts of forums where those ideas get transferred and hopefully that's what we can do today many issues the lessons of the pandemic when you open up the financial system to so many hundreds of millions of more people what happens now global interest rates are rising to some of these loans what happens when incomes are so squeezed between rising energy and food is there a smarter suite of products that can help act as some sort of bridge in terms of this cost of living crisis for these types of customers and where does it all go in a future in a world of central bank digital money where transactions can be traced to the person time and geolocation you can if you're down the line watching this you can go to slido.com and type in fin inclusion f inclusion into the hashtag and you'll be able to ask some questions that we can pick up and put to this great panel and the panel I will introduce in a moment it's an esteemed panel but as esteemed as it is we have a greater honour as you can see in the form of a majesty queen maxima of the Netherlands the United Nations secretary general special advocate for inclusive finance for development who wants to help set up this really important session so your majesty the floor is yours thank you very much thank you very much for this very good introduction I love the way you actually said it's a slow motion slideshow and because it is true you see if you're there you don't really realize but you know so much has changed and we have come together at a very defining moment as we emerge from this global pandemic that has kept us apart for two years I'm very happy I just arrived to be here back again we are seeing that it has also spawned really an unprecedented number of digital connections when COVID-19 hits governments rush to provide financial relief to citizens often through digital talents at the same time social distances force people to find alternatives to cash and face-to-face shopping more money use it skyrocketed in latin america alone 50 million adults began using digital merchant payments the latest data will arrive this summer in june when the new global ffindex is released but we already know that over 1.2 billion adults have gained access to financial services in the last decade and we are expecting that to grow by many millions more now if we have learned one thing about financial inclusion it is that better access new users and higher transaction numbers is simply not enough over the last year I have advocated for enhancing the resilience of underserved groups in the face of economic shocks so they are better able to seize economic opportunities MSMEs have been hard hit by COVID-19 especially informal ones and those owned by women for these enterprises going from pen to and paper to digital is one of the keys to financial recovery and resilience at the G20 leader summit in Rome last year I urge governments to accelerate digital solutions for SMEs around the world going digital can open new markets and have businesses more efficient a digital ecosystem can help small businesses better manage the inventory marketing payments credits and sales it can also help MSMEs gain access to financial services for example their data footprint can be used by financial institutions to provide financing more quickly and at better rates another very important issue is once a population is financially included does it really lead to better financial lives are they financially healthy good financial health means being more resilient to financial setbacks and better equipped to seize opportunities a financially healthy population can recover faster on their own and relieve pressure on government safety nets this is a responsibility that concerns us all financial health should be a common goal of governments regulators the private sector the financial sector and NGOs for financial service providers in the room you will likely discover that investing your customers financial health will mean they can pay their loans on time purchase other products and services and cost less to self there is a very strong case on financially healthy customers having better information insights on customers can also help you design products that influence financial behaviors for the better saving products that not people to achieve their goals are a very good example now as we continue to close the financial inclusion gap I encourage you all to apply a financial health perspective to all your efforts this will enable us to achieve the purpose of financial inclusion and create more resilient economies and probably more stable ones thank you very much for your attention I hope you have a very fruitful discussion thank you thank you thank you thanks for joining us I know I know you have to run off the next one but I'm so going to miss him not at all thanks again for coming thank you now okay we're going to we're very efficient with our we're just going to great oh no I think excellent right so we are now going to complete the panel up here people have been queuing to be on this panel so let me quickly introduce in order here of course we have the governor of the bank de france uh central bank of france uh François Villore de Gaill and then I'll just we're in a and then uh we will have in a second uh Gelsa Mina Villioti who is just going to replace his she's thank you Gelsa Mina thank you very much who is from the european investment bank and a former senior official in the italian treasury um then we have uh andres solistio the chief executive officer of the go-to group in indonesia we have adeem Ahmad of the lulu financial group in the UAE uh and then we have a carabo morule of capital art who is a uh an act who was an act tree or it still isn't i don't think you ever lose being an act tree but now runs um a very interesting uh the the capital art project which is trying to refashion how people treat african art so again keep those questions coming on slido let's um uh let's begin with you carabo about the uh because we've got perspectives from every continent here and it's really important different savings cultures different borrowing cultures so there isn't a one-size-fits-all um tell us about your experience of financial inclusion and spreading it as far as possible and where it's going so for about 10 years i actually worked at all mutual which is a large financial services conglomerate in south africa focusing on middle income customers and you start to realise that even when we think yes people are in the middle income know everything about financial finances you start to realise that actually they don't necessarily do so and financial education plays a really big role in that particular market to help them think about financial inclusion in particular exposure to insurance products and i know we often talk about financial inclusion in relation to banking but actually insurance products are there to kind of really make sure that you're reducing the opportunity for a large financial outcome to ruin you financially by making small contributions over time and passing on that risk to somebody else so that's something which i think a lot of people miss but it's been incredible to see and now i also sit as a non-executive director of time bank that's the first bank in south africa to have their bank co-banking platform in the cloud and they've been doing some phenomenal work in the area of financial inclusion and actually won two awards with a focus on a women specifically and they've been doing a great amount of work to focus on people who are in low income making sure that you know their bank account doesn't attract bank fees so you can deposit an amount kind of two years ago which is like i did because obviously i sit on the social ethics committee i wanted to make sure i experienced the services of the bank and the same amount is still there even though i have not touched that amount and that really plays a big role especially for people who are financially vulnerable around how they use that account for savings which a lot of people then aren't normally able to you know for example access things like money market funds where the amount that you need to invest on a monthly basis is around 500 rand all these people are kind of earning less than five and a half dollars a day and that's why these types of products are really important well you immediately corrected me because i've totally forgot about insurance and of course insurance is like the most fundamental protective barrier for people against calamity there's plenty of calamity around at the moment encourage all of you you know your territories in your markets give us an insight into the data you know how much it's spreading how it's changing savings culture or borrowing culture let's go on to mr armad's perspective from the the UAE sure um so we're a UAE based entity but we spread across 10 not countries you know so GCC Indian subcontinent and Asia Pacific you know i'll take the example of two countries one is UAE and one is India of course where we have large presence out you know so the major question for us is to get the unbanked and we are much into the cross border space where we have migrant populations looking at the the whole demographic of the GCC countries you will find that you know around 80 percentage of the population is an expatriate population and they work there to send their money back home you know so how do we get these money back into the accounts of people are out in the most effective manner the shorter period of time and the most cost efficient manner out you know that becomes the first chain you know and the second chain about for where we try to identify is to create a customer experience journey out you know where we kind to understand where this money is used so that on the other end of the of the customer journey we try to give them micro loans and financing and so on so forth you know the biggest challenge that we have faced on this side is is one is to find identify data of the end consumer use mapping of the financial journey of each of the consumers we were not able to find out how to collect the last mile availability in each of the countries because of the rural accessibility is becoming a bit more harder and the positive side is that India has taken a giant leap on this aspect you know with with coming out of Aadhar which is an identity proof today covers around 90 percentage of the the population in India has really helped us to really fast track that journey out you know and also with your unified payment network that has now come to play in India which is really really helped in terms of making sure that you know we can get the money out into the consumers and the shortest and the most cost effective manner similarly if you look at UAE in 2009-10 they came out with a wage protection system which is a unified platform that has been done by the ministry of finance and the ministry of labour where it enforces that every employee needs to be paid through a bank or a plastic thus ensuring that they get paid every month and there is a traceability on this usage of funds you know so this all these these very effective methodologies has really increased the inclusiveness in this vast two countries if you really look at it India receives around 87 billion every year into inward remittance flow and a large amount of that money comes out of the GCC countries you know and to effectively manage the use of this fund in the closest possible time the use of technology has really helped us and I think so the last three years have really fast-tracked the use of this digital transformation and today the use of internet of data has also further helped in making sure that you know the customers of both the sides are well taken care of and just really quickly in India I just have no concept I have a concept that in the UK in the US we borrow and in Korea they save right in India I just can't really quite you know are your are your new customers your newly included customers are they savers or are they borrowers are they boat you know it depends on which generation they are from okay so it's a generation it's the same model the same model you know so the younger generation are yes they are more on to the spending side of things the earlier generations are things but you know a very interesting aspect that we've recently found out is how the migration pattern has changed you know a generation before the migrants who were living in UAE as such used to save money send it to the subcontinent they used to buy real estate down there the younger generation today takes a flight goes back to the the subcontinent sells everything that their parents have made and bought the money outside the country so there is also a reverse flow of of funds that are happening at this point of time because of larger level of globalization that is happening and you know people moving out of the country as well you know so that's a very interesting stimulus that we have seen in the last couple of years could be a trigger of the COVID where people have found out other countries to be much more adaptable in terms of quality of living and so on so forth or the the ability for you to work from anywhere in the world you know and need not to be in in one one particular junction and you two have already proven to me that you know when you have the numbers the data the actuarial data or the lending data you know how society is changing more way before any politicians or journalists frankly but i'm reminded by remittances obviously bigger than aid flows i'm not quite sure by how much but somebody will have the figure let's go on to your experience in indonesia fascinating technological developments that you've pioneered why don't you tell the the audience about them and tell us about them the marketplace yeah sure um so we're uh we we're i'm from go to um so we have a a few products uh one is a gojag tocopedia e-commerce and also on-demand services one of the interesting thing that we've um actually experienced is that um to be able to address the gaps for financial inclusion first we have to bring society into digital inclusion first and that's actually something that we experienced with the rate of development of our government on infrastructure such as accessibility and connectivity it gave birth to companies like us in being able to actually use digital means to connect a lot of the undersurf into the formal economy and that happened with gojag and tocopedia as well seven years ago in gojag cases we actually serve what we call the ojek community which is an informal motorcycle drivers who are undersurf not part of formal economy we empower them to be the last mile logistics for people to go somewhere to deliver food deliver items and whatnot and suddenly what started as tens of thousands community now became like three or four million of you know these populations that serve using technology and being able to be part of the formal economy because of technology similar in tocopedia a lot of merchants before if you wanted to sell in Indonesia you have to be in shopping malls big city jakarta surabaya and you have to be in shopping mall to be able to market your product with tocopedia with the with our marketplace concept where we connect users with lots of small micro entrepreneurs or mom and pop shops that allows transaction to be happened borderless and wherever you are you can be in a small city in Indonesia you can sell to customers in jakarta and then that that connection is important now it's important to start there because our experience is that if we don't help to actually get them to generate more income first it's hard to sustain financial inclusion because it comes after so what what our experience is that once we see the small merchants small driver partners that doesn't have any track record before and because we are a platform that connects their digital transaction suddenly becomes a track record that wasn't there before if they go to a bank they will be rejected because you know you don't have a track record we do and therefore a lot of the development is actually to help them to you know for us to use those data to them provide them with financial products it could be savings it could be working capital it could be lending insurance we talk about insurance and stuff and that is actually a emotion that actually will be sustainable because you introduce them to more income and then we help to manage their operations or their life better with financial product and therefore the financial well-being will be sustained but but that's just a one story part of it there's there's plenty of more development that needs to be done i think there's a special mention about things like real-time payments upi adar infrastructure private and private and public needs to work together to ensure the infrastructure for financial inclusion can be cheaper things like real-time payment is such a valuable infrastructure if cost of moving money is not close to zero and seamless it's really hard to actually build sustainability and i think the great thing is in Indonesia government is realizing that and there's a lot of development on that so we're looking forward for that next evolution and stage so i was talking to you is amazing innovation and creativity in in targeting an financial excluded group that is critical to the way that the economy works and expanding from there and but then also critically using your information and data to be able to develop financial products so in the same way a credit rating agency might do it you have a different source of data how very very interesting um uh so moving on um to um jelsa mina um uh you know from a european perspective um it's obviously different the market's more developed but you help fund some you help fund you know those people who are continue to be excluded in the uk in the u um and some development projects outside as well yes no definitely uh first of all thank you for um having inviting me to to this panel for two reasons you mentioned very beginning that i came from the italian treasury actually i joined the european investment bank last year after that uh you know i ran the the finance track of the g20 and actually you know um within the italian presidency but also under the indonesian presidency and also under previous presidencies of the g20 the financial inclusion is one of the most relevant topic because you know you know there is a widespread recognition that you know providing access to finance is an opportunity to grow to to be inclusive and so in this regard it's something which is very relevant to to my career and also to the aab the aab the european investment bank we are a large financiers as you rightly said we mainly invest within the european union but we have also a large portfolio outside of the european union actually annually we invest between eight and ten billion outside of the european union and where we invest you know i would say that we go from a large infrastructure which are important you know for the for the economies and also to the financing of SMEase actually SMEase it's a financing as SMEase is at the very center of the activity of the european investment bank both inside the the union and outside of the european union and i can give you some example what we do also within the european union to include person let me start from the outside of the european union actually you know so to start a business uh uh you know in a difficult environment in fragile economies you need you know i mean we have to rely on financial intermediaries so our first task is to find what are the right financial intermediaries which can go along with our objective that can ensure that we can achieve the objective that we want to achieve and that is to to create a business case you know actually you know what is not it's all important to have access to finance but also to have you know it's uh it's a business case to be financed and actually i think that what is most important is the access to finance but at the same time also providing the the skills and the ability to create a business case because you know very often you know when you have a business case it's uh it's much easier to to get finance for a sustainable investment because in the end you know once that you start an activity you you need also to run it and to to get it sustainable so outside the union we have several examples and i like to pick one of the example which bring in the insurance case actually we invested in a fund as i said you know we go through financial intermediaries through to funds and actually we invested in the funds in a fund and this fund is operational in 10 countries and they offer finance to micro and small and medium enterprises but at the same time also an insurance against the climate adverse effect because you know especially with the agriculture sector we know how relevant is that you know it's a farmer can be safeguarded with respect to the impact of extreme climate in jordan we we finance access of women to to finance it's a it's a fund which is completely dedicated only on on women and uh we have a very interesting case also within the european union with the the roma communities in bulgaria and romania actually this is a very underserved segment of the society and through the european investment fund which is a subsidiary of the european investment bank which actually uh it's a it's an instrument whose motto is uh we believe in small and which is dedicated you know to to the small and medium enterprises and through this instrument we provided guarantee for roma communities for entrepreneurs within the roma community so that they could start their their business so there are many underserved groups within also within the european union you know and we have to look also at the way in which we can provide the social impact and you know finance can also provide you know the opportunity to to create the social impact and especially if you you provide the people the right instruments and the right skill to prepare their case and to access finance and this regard for instance we also provided the online course on on financial inclusion so that you know through a direct access to the to the our website there could be the opportunity to to have you know information and to have a basic basic basic skill great well so we continue the telling the tale of how important this agenda is and also how it's applying itself across different continents uh i'll continue with one more easy question for the governor in terms of how it applies in a developed country um such as such as your own in France before we get a bit tougher i will try to be tough already and saying that financial inclusion has probably two parts the first one is universal access to financial services i would say some words about that but the second part of the second pillar is the right use of this financial services and this second challenge we have it in common between emerging and advanced economies let me say one quick word about the first part universal access here obviously in emerging and developing economies digitalisation is of the essence it's a very powerful accelerator as Her Majesty shared we will see what the next global findex figures are but to give you very impressive figures for Africa under your control 10 years ago in 2011 less than a quarter of African people had access to financial services we hope that by the next findex more than half will have access in 10 years thanks to digitisation in France the same figure is more than 95 so we don't have real problem of access we have by the way a right in the law to banking account and the central bank is responsible for this procedure and we could even say that digitalisation could raise some questions it's a very powerful accelerator i was impressed by what you said in most economies in our case we need we need less this accelerator it could create problems for older people it's the only caveat i would say i come i don't know if there are some in the room okay no i can if you allow me to the very important second pillar right use of financial services and this is what we call probably financial education of financial literacy this is an international challenge for all of us on this stage for all countries it's a new ecd priority and let me tell you a small story which might be of interest we in the central banks were attributed this mission not very late ago it was 2016 so six years ago it was a very significant change and frankly at the start there was an internal discussion is it a core mission for us is it a serious then say monetary policy or banking supervision very core missions with figures where much technicality where central bankers are usually expected yes it is core mission and let me say some words about that it is core mission first due to its objectives prevention for example it's very important we are in charge over in thatness if we help some poor families to manage better they budget we will have less over in thatness we talk earlier about cryptos and young people if we help young investors quote unquote to be careful about cryptos to say the least and to know that there is no sure bet and that it can be an illusion as we saw in recent months it's part of our business but let me give you still two objectives which are still more ambitious on monetary policy we could think that there is no relation there is because we must learn how to speak not only with market specialists ECB waters in our case or excellent journalists but also with a broad public think of inflation expectations think of the inflation worries today topic number one in most of our countries we must speak to the broad public and expect how monetary policy will re-anchor inflation expectations think of a very simplistic question did you try to explain to your family i tried my children i educated but they are not economists can you explain me dad why when you raise interest rates you decrease inflation it's not that obvious think about it this belongs to financial education and the efficiency of monetary policy and the last objective is about democratic debate i strongly believe on that there are many economic issues which are more and more complex about distribution growth etc and the economic consequences of geopolitical shocks if we give our fellow citizens some tools to understand it's probably the nicest mission we we can have and let me add if i still have 30 seconds facial another point why it's a core mission but a very innovative one it's due to its objective it's also due to its ways and means we cannot do it alone monetary policy we are in charge bank supervision we are in charge but for financial education we are more or less the conductor of an orchestra including NGOs including yes media and to give you two very quick examples first education teachers and now we work with the teachers and for young people who are about 13 or 14 years old we have introduced a financial past so to say which will become systematic it's a huge change and second gamification do you expect monetary policy staff to be very technical guys experts to present figures slides curves etc but the most efficient way is escape games and now we come with our escape games and we try to increase financial literacy with that frankly i didn't expect it i'm not a specialist in escape game but it's for me a story of humility and hope good okay right let's we've got we've given you a broad vista now let's just what i'm fascinated by and i want the whole panel to respond to this um is we've had this financial shock that's hit the whole world the pandemic and there's another shock now in terms of prices uh we can all be very happy and smiley about how the great opportunities of of this agenda but let's be clear the covid pandemic i don't know about your country's but in the uk saw a massive exponential leap in the fraud and scams on the most vulnerable vulnerable people and and there's a flip side to including people people which is some some of the dangers i just i just wondered what has been the record of the newly included during these extremely difficult financial times the stress test if you like to what you're trying to do and um and what lessons do you draw from the data about the financial behaviour of of some of the newly included who wants to go first maybe andre um yeah so so just just sharing some experience i think during the pandemic um one of the positive thing and again a lot of the perspective from our side comes first from the ms me's and then let's talk about the consumers um because of the pandemic there's a rush on a lot of these micro entrepreneurs and businesses to go digital and therefore a lot of what we innovate uh either through our you know e-commerce or food delivery um for food merchants and stuff is to be able to help them to onboard very quickly so easily so that anyone can actually start right and that's that's the case and we saw um you know a couple of millions of new additions into the system to the market opportunity there was the main factor exactly and okay and that and that actually was a saving grace if you may yeah where where a lot of the income that was lost now gotten back because of that opportunity and we also see a lot of um um people folks who actually lost their job started becoming an entrepreneur because of how this these platforms makes it very easy for anyone to start a business and that's actually a there's a lot of positivity into it that might not no no no i'm not i'm not trying to be a journalist trying to create control but but you know let me give you an anecdote i mean i am and we'll spread this out you know i remember when mobile phones the story i told you about west bengal you know mobile phones came in the farmers were excited about having the prices text message to them but they were also being texted by a reputable mobile phone company you know click this bollywood person if you like them and guess what they were charged 10 rupees you know that sort of stuff happens too and in barely literate or you know or newly literate populations and newly financial included populations um are the newly financially included resilient financially resilient uh mr armed are you finding well i would put it on a different way you know so uh these are guys who were firstly on boarded into a technology or into a platform in which education was not given just enough hence they're more vulnerable to a large-scale fraudulent activities you know every company in the last three years or two years who has been in this field wanted to do a large-scale onboarding of of consumers into their platform which are like tens of millions hundreds of millions hundreds of millions you know i mean um if you look at india also you know you see different consumer base being increased uh lot more digital platforms have come inside you know and everybody addressing different problems you know uh but at the same point of time they were not given enough time to have their platform set uh enough time to give out that education to the consumers to use and so on so forth which put up a large-scale opening of of consumer frauds that you rightly set up you know uh but what's the the good thing out you know the good thing is to the factor that since they were onboarded uh now it's a good time for them to be given that kind of financial literacy and at the same point of time handhold them to really start using the platform which could benefit them now being on the platform and being on on things so if you look at the MSME sector as such or the sector today we have a data of a consumer who was never there on the banking network you know uh thus giving a journey to this this particular consumer who can then been taken inside okay so there's always been a talk about public private partnerships and so on so forth i strongly feel that the the the regulators have done a lot in the last decade you know okay so what we require now is to have private private partnerships you know everybody is now becoming more nationalistic where in the same so you know banks are becoming more uh reserved and they are saying that we would like to control the entire space of of of the consumer journey we need more partnerships we need them to partner with new fintechs we need to give them an open new banking has been there there's a conversation that we're having but in in certain economies the banks are still very closed they don't want to open up informations to so for your perspective the opportunity is so large that it the always a dark side to everything but we're still way we're well up and well yeah of course yeah can i play down this idea of a trade-off between digitalisation and safety i don't believe in this trade-off or at least we have many ways to escape it we should make progress in universal access we should also make progress in regulation prevention and education in our case we increase digitalisation of payments obviously but we also increase the safety and it's the most efficient way to to increase access because this idea of a trade-off can be very toxic because you could say i would slow down digitalisation or i would be ready to pay for fraud snows there is no necessity for that and other issue i only mention is the increase with of cyber attacks this one is more serious we should be very vigilant and if the financial system is more digital it could be more vulnerable but if i may say it so far so good if the three months we are today exactly three months after the invasion of Ukraine and we didn't see increase of cyber attacks i touch the wood everywhere and we are very vigilant okay well let me put it another way okay financial services companies the data again we'll come back to the data you know so much about your customers the actuaries know know so much that people lending their money you know more than they may even know about themselves right now that's something that works with some of the most wealthy people in the world when you combine that with just newly financially emancipated some people who are you know numeracy levels and literacy levels might be not be as high as we might think that imbalance seems so huge and and some people's business models involved to some degree exploiting that or am I just a cynical journalist you know wherever there's an opportunity people will try and take it on the negative side but i think it's just been so wonderful to see the amount of interest in ffintech on African continent to try and address some of these challenges okay and also people being so innovative about the ways in which i think traditional banking system has excluded people and finding different ways of how to include people and i think it is kind of that's where the future is i think digital the digital side enables people to also get a holistic view of how people are managing their finances but i think also leveraging technology enables to you to get a way of thinking of incentives to drive the correct behavior so things like for example on middle income customers you realize that actually a lot of people get disheartened with buying insurance because they feel like you know i got this advisor who sold me this product and i never saw them again obviously that's related to the incentives related to upfront commission um what has been great to see is financial service you know in economic ecosystems where they've been incentivizing the fact that the customer holds on to the product for longer and longer because then they get the real benefit of the product and in particular insurance this you see this phenomenon um but also the fact that um you know in in the personal finance business that i was managing what we started to do was also making sure that advisors got to see their customers once a year and that's really important because you want to make sure that yes in the past year if something has changed about this individual you want to make sure that the plan that they have is still right for them and i think what's great about this is that obviously yes you know there's the incentive to focus on middle income simply because they've got more to spend on you and they you can make more money from them if you're a financial institution but actually i think we should be leveraging data to try and make sure that we can actually give in more access to people in the lower income spaces to see that they're also doing the right thing so a big challenge in South Africa for example is a lot of people taking funeral benefits when actually for middle income customers they should be taking life insurance because actually the risk to them is much greater than just what a funeral benefit can provide and you do see this problem where a lot of people are buying multiple funeral policies because they're sort of trying to access a greater amount based on the fact that they want to you know protect their livelihood in the incidence of their breadwinner passing away or something happening to them and you realize there they really need that access point or the data that guides them to say okay you see you're buying a lot of funeral products which actually are very very high margin that's why everybody's piling in to get into that business you should actually be taking out a life insurance product that's actually much lower margin for the business but it's much better for the customer okay um um let's throw this forward well actually let's bring it up to date with the very current situation we've seen pressure on incomes like never before big another big stress test you know in the pandemic there was massive massive support which kind of helped things along now just incomes falling um I don't is this new financial inclusion is it ready is it ready to is it stable enough to deal with a real shock to to the incomes of the newly financial included yes actually um after um you know it's um at the end of last year we um we run a series of uh service with banks in Africa and in other regions of the world and for instance the you know the survey from from Africa which actually confirmed what was just said you know it you know actually the picture that came out of the service that in the end the banking system within the african continent it reacted well to the covid crisis maybe because there was a good capitalization a starting good capitalization and there there were also you know a lot of policy interventions also in other part of the world also the ab the european investment bank provided financial packages to support small and medium enterprises and to support local business what happens now you know actually is that you know everything was based on you know on the assumption that then with the recovery you know you could start a new growth phase and that you know all of these support could have been reabsorbed and also that you know the the local business could have been flourished again now the issue is that what happens to this maybe to the new business which uh you know was created were created during the pandemics or which managed to survive you know how they can cope with that what we see now also talking with you know financial institution local financial institution is that what is more needed now is some sort of risk sharing mechanism you know some incentives that for instance will help to provide continue to provide finance with the lower level of collateral with you know new financial instruments and in this regard i think that there is an evolution that we have to look at since you know actually you know crisis after crisis it can get serious concerns i'm going to put a question immediately to the governor but you know do you remember your questions we've got five or six minutes we've slightly extended this we've got some good questions from the slido too new financial instruments alarm bells maybe start to ring do they perhaps you know i did the journalism on the origins of the subprime crisis in the us there were there were some good intentions there and financially underprivileged people were ripped off and it was it was a bad combination of financial innovation big institutions bad regulation and starting off with an attempt to spread finance are there any you think the systemic benefit of just spreading the financial system is so stabilizing that it counter counteracts any potential problems i think it's a very important question can i link it with the previous one oh yes i think there is a very important link so about the effect of the ukrainian crisis i would share what gelsamina said i'm vigilant but confident on financial institutions themselves they are solid and by the way the next increase in interest rates will help them including the new digital banks because they are very reliant on the value of their deposits and so the level of interest rates another question which brings me to financial innovation is the consequences for people themselves for households and for the poorest one here we must say very clearly that finance and financial services cannot bring all the solutions that kind finance cannot bring miracles and here is a link with your last question if you refer to the subprime it was an illusion and the illusion that everybody could have access to real estate whatever his real income was and it went to a catastrophe you can imagine all the new financial instruments you want including on the saving side be it pyramids be it cryptos be it whatever you want finance will not create value and income for the people per se and if there is a lack of income if there is a lack of growth it refers to fiscal policies to structural policies to the work and genius of individual companies but the ideas that financial inclusion which is very welcome could mean financial miracles in difficult times would be extremely dangerous now we all agree about that in this room but frankly look at what happened with subprimes you are right it was a wrong and very dangerous promise and I there are many lessons to do for from the subprime but for me for me the most interesting one is this kind of political support which was behind the subprimes so some politicians bought and sold this very dangerous financial inclusion no no I was very affected by going into a pastor in Baltimore and it becomes so integrated that the bank was selling mortgages and the church was getting a hundred dollars per mortgage and they were channeling it and so so this is to me about trust and innovation you know I don't want to be negative because I think there's amazing stories here but I guess this is about the plumbing isn't it you guys are plumbers and it's about connecting people not creating miracles in terms of uh life standards and that's but there's enough plumbing to be done you need the sewers need to be created not maybe not the sewers the uh the fresh water supply needs to be tapped into every corner of the world and there's still lots of opportunity there um uh any question anybody want to come in from here before I go to slido um okay um right uh one question here is credit reporting from anonymous acts as the backbone of credit what do you see as gaps in credit reporting and what can tech do for access particularly for migrants and I want to pick that up take it up um so just to take a step back and say that you know see uh the digital inclusion is a great thing you know but one should not forget that there is also a need of an emotional connect at the bottom level um to understanding your consumers you know so because when you move away from not having physical touch points uh you don't get a very clear picture about what your end consumer actually does you know so that's you and the consumer that's me you don't visit them no you've just got a set of metrics about them yeah so every algorithm does not give you a clear picture of your customer you know so it doesn't give you what the customer actually wants you know it could it could take you to a certain level so being digital and moving away from the online I mean on the brick and mortar space most of the times has not helped us you know so there needs to be still a need for a last mile connectivity uh on the bottom level you know physically physically because the algorithms can only go so far we haven't talked about the algorithm absolutely you know so the algorithm I just wanted to put that inside you know so I mean being digital is all great but one should not take that that last mile connectivity of your consumers because then you don't get a real picture of them then you cannot map their financial journey okay so I just want someone to and we've got one minute and we walk around Davos and we see AI this and web 7 this and all that sort of stuff and it creates a massive computing power to try and analyse humans and some of these algorithms you end up paying a lot of money to the cloud people right well they seem to throw them yeah yeah they seem to have the cash here but but the but the but the algorithms uh do they marry with financial inclusion or can they within them exclude I think um there's two sides to it because I think there are some areas where you do see that there's the discrimination that occurs with algorithms that's something that everybody needs to be mindful of yeah and I think an example well um yes there's a big scandal in South Africa where people who literally there's people who've done tests and they will submit the exact same details but their name will be different and if you can infer which cultural group they're from then one person gets a high interest rate on the car loan then the other person so you do see that sometimes when you've coded a particular um uh kind of a way of of deciding who gets credit who doesn't and what interest rate it is sometimes it perpetuates um discrimination in a way that is actually just you know it's just not agree not inclusive at all yeah agree um but I think the the big thing about um leveraging some of this technology is the fact that it can make connections and dots that sometimes we don't naturally see and it can identify who are the people who actually are better credits based on different set of of um criteria relative to what the traditional credit um agencies have been tracking and I think that's the beauty of it that's where we need to kind of think of the fact that the digital world is you know very very vast not only the web three stuff which everybody is kind of really scared about at the moment I'm not I shouldn't be sad dismissive you just want to come in quickly on algorithm could I propose two very simple golden rules and here I take my head as a supervisor of banks and insurance alike so first golden rule is don't use algorithm you don't understand the black box syndrome it looks obvious but believe me it would eliminate many of the algorithms and the second golden rule to bankers and insurance alike is don't sell products you cannot explain yeah and it would have avoided several of the financial crisis you mentioned but believe me as supervisors we will be deadly serious about these two rules right well listen we do have to leave it there we've been on a journey around the world from motorbikes in Indonesia to the cloud three web seven whatever is doing algorithms on people so I sound like my dad now they um but I I but I think nothing can be more important than billions of people having access uh to to the plumbing of the financial system there are some interesting challenges that come with that I'm so glad that all of you when I injected some slight journalistic negativity swamped me with positivity that is that is the Davos spirit but I think we all learn something about where this agenda is going we learn about what's happening in different parts of the world I mean I think we will learn more when this new set of figures come out this seems to be like a great moment on the June the 26th or 7th in the world back the global ffindex numbers will come out showing just how much progress has made and it becomes as more people get connected it becomes even more important so with that thank you to everyone listening back home uh so back in around the world thank you for everyone listening well my i think my mum's listening back home as well thank you to everybody in the audience and thank you so much to both queen maxima who's had to leave and also this fantastic panel uh we've made this issue extremely exciting because it's really really important thank you thank you to take us off you


Congratulations to ITU colleagues and all those who were involved in the revision of the very important guidelines on child online protection. Digital technologies has become a core part of the daily interactions of millions of children worldwide. It has never been more crucial to equip the key actors with latest resources and tools to support their efforts to keep children safe. I am confident that these newly updated set of guidelines will serve as valuable reference for all actors working in this area and support the collective efforts to protect children as they navigate the online world. It was a pleasure to lead the specific work on guidelines for industry and I express my sincere appreciation to everyone who lend their expertise in this process. Together with ITU, we will continue our efforts to make sure that these guidelines are more widely available and utilized. Thank you.


What's up guys? Welcome back today. I want to talk about something very very exciting It's all about value finding value in tickets and what better way to find value than with a game show So stay tuned because something exciting is just about to happen Hello everyone and welcome back to the first edition of How much is it worth? So exciting on this game show This is the game show all about trying to guess how much these tickets are worth today We have a nice pair of tickets to see the auto center resources the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday December 21st As you can see they're located in section 318 row E seats one and two now And the only rules in this game are they have to remember the rules we follow are the price is right rule TP I our rules that means if you go over the bid y'all lose you got to get it under or exact And now the question of the day is Just the number one how much is it worth here are the tickets in hand Seats are located in section 318 row E seats one and two on the eye These seats are located in the corner section of the upper bowl not in the middle not in the ends there in the corner now How much is it worth? It seems like the Philadelphia Flyers is probably a bronze level game. Okay, I'm gonna go for 2450 Bob Okay, now remember this is for the pair of tickets not the one ticket. Okay. I'm gonna go for $49 Bob Contestant number two contest number two same question.  Thank you once again to my two very lovely contestants for participating in my very first edition of how much is it worth? This is gonna become a recurring segment on this channel So definitely stay tuned for more episodes of this game show that will be sporadically placed in different videos So make sure you're checking them all But now what I really want to dive into today is all about finding value. So with value What does that mean? It's basically trying to find the best price to pay for a ticket that's available either on the prior market or the Secondary market. So what are the three things we're gonna cover face value price breaks and how to compare tickets between the primary and secondary markets? All right, so first off face value I think a lot of you already know what this is But basically it's the price set by the box office for a specific ticket that's going on sale now Face values will include, you know the actual ticket price any kind of fees or taxes that needs to be included So what you'll get at the end of the day is, you know $35 ticket plus all the different fees and taxes and you'll end up with you Know your very expensive expensive ticket So if you buy a face value ticket basically means you're buying from the box office direct and that means that you're buying a ticket That is 100% authentic and that's what a lot of people do like so buying a face value ticket means you're always gonna be able to Get into that event or game now in a venue. They're not gonna price every single ticket the exact same price So what's gonna happen is you're gonna have different zones and sections and rows where you're gonna see different price points Across the entire venue. So for example with the auto senators the cheapest seats You'll find in the entire building are up in the coke zone, which is in sections 314 to 316 And that's where you're gonna find the best price for an actual ticket my best price I mean just the cheapest price then as you kind of explore the rest of the venue, you know, there's the McDonald's zone There's the upper bowl end zones and sidelines and you know And then as you kind of work your way around the entire building eventually get all the way down to you know Club seats and glass seats all the great stuff available again price points Will not be the same across all these different sections because each section has its own value proposition associated to it And so with that you're gonna get a different type of buyer for each type of section or zone in the building But that doesn't mean you can't find some additional value within these sections that you're actually looking for now Lastly with face value tickets is that the price may still change. It's not always hardened set in stone in the past That's what it used to be but now a box office and venues They're all looking to squeeze out every single penny possible And so when the demand is higher or lower to your prices may change up or down fish Now as I might have alluded to with this first section, we're gonna now move into price breaks So what are price breaks? Basically, it's when you get to an actual section in the event or the venue Where the price changes from one row to the next or one from one section to the next with the auto center specifically you take a look in sections, you know 318 319 and these you know upper corner sections What you're gonna find is that anything row E and up? That's one price point and anything D and lower is actually a second price point So if you're looking to maximize your value on every ticket you buy It means you will be buying in actually the row E again if you buy in row E The same price is buying in row S. So in that tire section of tickets and then all those rows It's basically saying hey the same price of being applied across the board So why would you ever sit at the top when you can take a look try and find some seats that are actually a bit lower For the same price point and that is where you're gonna start finding some value So if the applies for concerts and other venues what you'll see is that a lot of sections You know directly to the very back of the building There'll be a one price point and then as you kind of move around the rest of the building You'll see that eventually there'll be a section where the price will go You know it'll jump from one price point to another so if you're able to get yourself situated in one of those sections You be close to the band or closer to the artist But basically paying potentially a lot less than what someone is paying for one section beside you So if you're on the aisle of one section on the aisle the other section in the price point jumps, you know 50 bucks Then there you go You're saying 50 bucks are basically the same view same seat same experience So that's how you can find a lot of savings and value now It's important remember that looking for this type of value only applies to face value tickets They're basically sold directly from the box office The reason mind that is because the box office is setting entire blocks of tickets all the same price So what you're going to see is that you know within a certain section you'll say it's even for auto senators If you're looking in section 318 Entire section from you know row s row ease the same price You're not going to find that on the secondary market because when you think about it Why would I pay the same price in row s as I could in row e? You wouldn't the only reason you do that is if there were no face value tickets left But at the same time it's like does that really make much sense? No, not really But but if you do want to turn that event and that's all it's available Then obviously you got to go with what's there? However, if you have the ability to select where you're gonna be sitting and there are quite a few options available to you Definitely make sure you take some time to look for where the best seats are in a specific section Taking a look and finding those price breaks is key to making sure you get the best value possible when buying those tickets Now last thing when we're comparing tickets between the primary and secondary market when you're buying on the primary market Like I said prices are the same for entire blocks of tickets So you're gonna find value by finding that price break, but when you're looking on the secondary market That's where you actually now start seeing incremental differences between you know sections and rows and you know seating locations And you'll be seeing it very very specifically So for example if you're looking for a ticket you're obviously not gonna pay the same price in row s as you would in row E if you want to be closer to the action You actually will be sitting as low as possible And so you're gonna be looking for those row e type seats, but again You don't need to hang an arm and a leg for that same ticket. So what's the play here? Let me tell you first off start with the box office That's always gonna be your number one go to where to begin your entire search Reason behind that is you need to get an idea of what the actual ticket price the set ticket price Basically the face value of that ticket is that'll have judge and help you determine whether you're getting a good deal or not Also with the box office you can get an idea of how many tickets are still available If there are quite a few seats available from the box office It basically means the demand for that event is not yet there and that's kind of your starting point So for example, if you take a look at you know the December 21st game You'll see that ticket prices started at $35 For the you know third section 318, you know section rows e to s they're starting at $35 But if you jump over to somewhere like stub hub or tick pic What you're gonna see is that the actual prices for those events are much much lower Just because it's a weekend game doesn't always mean that it's gonna be an expensive game Especially when there isn't a lot of people looking to go see the auto signers So what's gonna happen is you're gonna see that ticket prices are much lower on the secondary market than what they would be On the primary market So once you know what the price is on the primary market for the face value go ahead take a look on the secondary market Ticketmaster does have their own you know ticketmaster plus, you know integrated resale market into the into their their maps But you can also go ahead check on stuff up and others and what you'll see is that the tickets in this case much cheaper So now you know what you're willing to pay So if you're willing to pay for a face value ticket That can kind of be your starting price point So if for example, you're willing to pay $35 plus any associated fees for those tickets You could set your price point on you know a stub hub or some other website and just move the slider so that you set it up So that you're only gonna pay that same $41 or $35 or whatever it is and then just kind of work your way there What you'll see is that different sections of the map will obviously get Coordined off for you and you won't be able to buy tickets there because it won't meet that price point request But you're gonna see that there are a lot of other options that do exist So it could end up being that you're still gonna buy it from the box office directly other times It could be you're gonna buy it from a secondary market But make sure that you're always taking the time to compare the price between what you're getting at the box office to what you're gonna get On the secondary market now on the secondary market because the lower the row you get Generally speaking the more expensive the price will get you have to keep in mind that sometimes people will have bought those tickets From the box office to actually resell so what you'll see is that there's seats in row E While they may only be $35 from the box office. You might actually find that they're you know 35 40 45 dollars maybe even more on the resale market so again because these price breaks do exist So what you're gonna see is that the price is for those better seats within that price break section You're gonna see that those are generally gonna be more expensive doesn't mean you can't find them Just have to make sure you take some time to actually look last thing to do with comparing price points Is that you need to always be aware of how soon the event is actually going to happen if the event is coming up? Very soon as in you know the next 24 48 72 hours That's generally where you're gonna see the cheapest prices on the secondary market available So prices at that point people who have tickets available to sell they're gonna start getting a bit more worried They don't want to have to get stuck with the tickets that they can't sell basically lose their entire you know investment So what's gonna happen is you start seeing prices starting to come down slowly slowly slowly when you get in that 24-hour Period that's generally where you're gonna see the best prices possible So if you have the ability to wait Definitely wait go ahead take your time wait for prices come down Then go ahead could start comparing between face value and secondary market pricing at the end of the day You obviously want to save as much money as possible But at the same time you don't want to be stuck with the risk of not getting anything because that has definitely happened to me before Where I'm you know right outside the venue waiting to go in and then the tickets Just the prices never come to where I want them to and so you're stuck You're your force basically to buy what you don't want to buy however You want to make sure that you get the tickets you want So at the end of the day make sure you start with checking out face value prices to Take a look and see how much they're going for on the secondary market those same equivalent type of seats And then three make sure that you make the right decision by taking the time to make your final purchase So like what happened with me in Phoenix when I was trying to buy tickets out there I ended up waiting I got a bit lucky just because they had difference promos and discounts going on But if I had to buy it on the secondary market prices had started to jump quite considerably as we near the event So if I had actually waited I wouldn't have gotten great seats I would have paid two or three times more money and the experience just wouldn't have been the same So every event is different every venue is different every city is different So at the end of the day you really need to make sure that you're paying attention to you know What the face value is what the market value is and how soon you are to that event if you can try and wait But if it's not possible, or you just need to have those tickets right this second Make sure you take some time to find the best value in tickets. Yes So in your next ticket buying purchase, let me know what time prices you were looking at between face value and market value Let me know if you saved any money. Let me know if you spent a ton of money I want to know all about your adventures because I love to see how you guys are doing with your ticket buying Experience with the new year coming to an end It's important that we all take some time to make sure we're always in the best possible mindset for buying those tickets And so when you find some value make sure that you smash the like button All right, that covers it all be sure to subscribe if you haven't already because I have a lot of great content coming up in the new year It see you guys next time 2450 Alex Alex who's Alex? Rebecca? This is not all the wrong game What's his name? Drew Carey Drew?


Hello, everyone, and welcome. I'm James Milan. I am with Jennifer Freese, who is candidate for 24th Middlesex District, State Representative, and we are here for a one-on-one conversation in which we are just going to get to know Jennifer, the person, and Jennifer the candidate a little bit better. First of all, Jen, thanks so much for carving the time out. I know this is a busy time leading up to the election for you, obviously. There's always time to talk to the voters. That's what it's all about. All right, so let's do that. Let's make sure that the voters know more about you than they, you know, at the end of this conversation than they do at the start. And let me ask for that. Why don't you just before we start delving into your professional background and how that, you know, has a lot to do with your running for office, I'm curious about why you would take this kind of thing on. This is a one of my colleagues called this a brave thing for you to do, and I don't think that she was I don't think she was off with that. I do think it's brave to take on the challenge of running, especially in the current circumstances for public office. So what motivated you to do so? Is it something that's been on your mind a while or something recent? What is that? So I am a lifelong Democrat and I I was a public policy major and both undergraduate and I have my master's in public administration. So in some ways it's not that crazy that I would run for office. I'm the kind of person that people tend to ask who are you voting for and that kind of thing because they know I'm I'm paying attention but on the other hand, I also just I always saw myself as being the supporter to campaigns and I would have been a volunteer. I've done lots of things on lots of different campaigns for candidates for office and also just for issue campaigns that I cared a lot about. And so yeah, this is very different for me and out of the comfort zone and I think like a lot of people after the 2016 election I felt like whatever I was doing I needed to do more and um when I looked around I felt like there was a lot that was broken on the state level that our state politics just had so much in the way of just delaying dragging their feet on really important policy obstructing it. I felt like it was really hard for the average person to know what's happening on things policies that they really care about and just day-to-day services that really mean a lot like schools being funded adequately, the tea running well I also have been hearing people worry about their future because of climate change or the future of the children and grandchildren and housing all the things that I know a lot about from my career in the nonprofit world and so I had a group of people over my house to do postcarding for Stacy Abrams and it was the weekend that we knew it was the Friday night that we knew that Brett Kavanaugh was going to be appointed to the Supreme Court and it was a really raw conversation because that news was just really hard to take and we also just been hearing more and more about families being separated at the borders and people were talking about just how we needed more people in office that knew about on the direct level how these policies were impacting people and I was also sharing with some people just my frustration. I had visited my rep about an issue I really cared about the red flag law and He said he was with us, but he spent the whole time playing devil's advocate. He literally said he wanted to play devil's advocate and he did and um I just left really disheartened and somehow out of that, you know, a lot of people were there from the neighborhood um, they encouraged me to to run for the seat and the next day I actually applied to a candidate training program uh that encourages democratic women to run for office and even then I it was very um preliminary because I ran a nonprofit that had a state contract and um is pretty important in the camers community and I didn't want to Have it be seen that my nonprofit was tied up in politics So I told my board of directors. I was entering this program and at the end of six months I would let them know if I was going to run for office and uh, I came out of it still feeling like I could make a difference and I did I left that job. I took another job that's more compatible. Um with campaigning and um Yeah, I sometimes say that running for office is my midlife crisis I'm 50 and And um, yeah on the same age as or just um the train that derailed on the red line is just a little bit older than me And it was supposed to be 25 years in service. So All right, so no wonder your your the mbta is one of your one of the you know, obviously your key issues and concerns Which we will talk about a little bit more Further on in the conversation, but you did reference your career in nonprofits. So tell us about that and especially with an emphasis on You know voters understanding how it is that that career would be relevant to and perhaps An excellent preparation for You know the the job of state rep Yeah, so I started my career as a volunteer I was a volunteer on a suicide hotline in college And that led to volunteering also on the domestic violence Shelter hotline at the shelter and on the hotline and in the family courts in Providence, Rhode Island I ultimately wrote my thesis my honors thesis on prosecution of domestic violence misdemeanors In the case when a witness the victim is hesitant to go forward And it really makes a difference in terms of policy how the prosecutor approaches that hesitant witness that turns out And so I did original research on that and presented my findings to the attorney general in Rhode Island And so then I worked for many years in domestic violence shelters and programs And made a slight shift when I took a job at In a statewide capacity at the massachusetts legal assistance corporation That is a quasi state agency. So it was funded by statute and you know, there's certain things in the statute That says who can be on the board and how it runs Um, but it is an independent nonprofit. So it's a little one of those strange So that's what quasi means in that case is that it's kind of gets some of its funding from Yeah, yes, but okay. Yeah, not just funding with some of its authority to operate. It was not A 501 c3. It's it's a little different. Um And so I was second in command there and while I was there I was able to Be part of a founding coalition That the equal justice coalition that started something called walk to the hill for legal aid We were able to secure break a logjam and secure millions of dollars of funding for legal assistance for people who are facing things like eviction elder law crises employment issues housing issues of other kinds Immigration cases and in a separate effort while I was there I also was able to secure several million dollars of funding annually for victims of domestic violence Who that's actually the most effective intervention In terms of reducing homicides for against victims and their children is legal assistance It's kind of strange. Do you think shelter would be the thing that would be the most effective? But there's good research that shows that Um providing legal assistance because it allows the victim to maintain her independence And potentially get income and support that otherwise she wouldn't get Um, he or she um That it actually legal assistance is the thing that makes it less likely that a victim will be killed and their children Um, so anyway, I I was successful in that it was um hard work We had a very conservative speaker who was opposed to funding those kinds of things and it took uh assembling an unusual coalition of people to Change his mind at least to let it go forward. It wasn't that he was a fan of legal services But it just like now it's very hard to get a vote on important legislation. You can't even get it to the floor And that's one of the things that I've seen over the years It's just been broken on on beacon hill is that really good legislation goes into committee And on a secret vote it dies. So we never see an unpublished vote. We never see why things don't come out um, and then sometimes things are just stuck there like the roe act, which um is About reproductive health care and abortion rights that it has been stuck in committee for more than 18 months and um, You know, that's that's kind of typical of a lot of really good and important laws um, they're I mean, what do you? Excuse the interruption, but what do you? um What do you attribute That phenomenon that you're You know describing to um, why is it that that happens with more regularity than you or maybe all of us would like it to I think that there is um, a consolidation of power in leadership, which can happen in any institution um, however What I I'm afraid I see happening is that people who can afford to hire lobbyists Know exactly what's going on on beacon hill And people who can't which is everyone else you and me and everybody else all the voters We we can't even figure it out like it's very opaque and it's opaque by design um, and so As a result you have things like uh corporate tax cuts and loopholes created and um Just it works the system works pretty well for people who are Wealthy enough or corporations usually or people who are wealthy enough to hire lobbyists um, but it does not work well for the rest of us And I I I think that that is by design to a certain extent. That's who they want to hear from And I think that we need to open it up. It could use some sunshine as a cleanser And um, we could use some transparency in the house rules I've taken a transparency pledge from act on mass in part. Um, it's not something that just I'm Passionate about there's a whole movement around transparency right now And trying to increase transparency because people are realizing much like campaign finance reform Transparency is a block something that would correct A whole lot of things that are wrong with the system and help us produce better governance good governance For people and centered around the people so you And again, I'm mindful of the fact that I interrupted your your Describing your you know the build up um professionally to to here and we can certainly get back to that but just to follow up on this a little bit more What you describe in terms of the problems or the the systemic issue with Uh in perhaps the in the state house here Sounds like that's the problem with the way that government functions on all levels which is that those who have access or tend to be those who are Best financed and best, uh, you know, just have the deepest pockets and they know how to get things done As you said and they have the ears or they could get their phone calls Answered etc. Um, and that just again seems like That's the way that things work in general Do you think that the situation in massachusetts and in the state house is Uh, it is is as as bad as it is for instance in people's perceptions on the federal level Um, and that we you know that it's broken in many of those same ways That's a good question. Um I think that one thing that people don't realize because we think of massachusetts as being a very blue state is that The the house in particular the senate actually has better rules and better transparency um than the house and um massachusetts actually has um a very secretive culture compared with other state houses in uh on the in the house level and um So it is unusual that way and it can be hard for for instance committee votes are secret so there Is something that you hear about all the time from um lobbyist So the lobbyists I know are people who lobby for things like homelessness And maybe there's like one person in the whole state who does that work or a legal aid person Who's lobbying on behalf of the needs of? um People who can't get unemployment or something like that um But you know, so those people are there are they are registered lobbyists. Um, so um, what I hear from people like that who Really know about the system is that um Raps will tell you to your face if you're a constituent that they support a bill and sometimes they'll even sponsor it And then they vote against it in committee um And you know, that's really frustrating and we should be able to have honest open debates about what we support and I guess I'm at a place in my life where I feel like I can be very Transparent just personally too about what I support and why it may not be the most popular thing everything I support but I can ground it in my lived experience of Several decades of personal and professional experience living in the district and helping Um secure funding and you know provide programs and work with people to improve their lives And so, you know, there are things that may be controversial like the safe communities act um Which if people don't know the safe communities act another thing that's been stuck in committee is something that sets limits and boundaries around how our state authorities work with immigration the federal authorities And the the way I've explained it to voters is I've worked with many victims of domestic violence Whose abusers use their status against them and in many cases they were eligible to become american citizens But their american citizen husband who was abusive to them Refused to file the papers because that was something you could hold over her Uh, and so he would say to her i'm going to get you deported And i'm going to keep the kids because the kids are american citizens You don't want the kids meanwhile, but he wants to pressure her to do whatever it is. He wants her to do and so um You know, this is not just one victim I'm talking about I've talked with many victims and survivors that this is one of the pieces of it You know, he marries her while he's you know You know on military duty abroad brings her home It doesn't file the paperwork So and then he threatens her that if you call the police i'm going to get you deported And at least during the prior administration, they had policy Guidelines that said no don't deport that person But our current administration is actually doing the complete opposite anyone that they can they are deporting It doesn't matter if they're a victim of domestic violence a child a an infant Um a victim of trafficking they're deporting them And so when we're in this environment where our federal government is putting children in cages um We really need to stand up and pass the safe communities act and I can explain why Because I have had that day-to-day experience with people In the district You know, I I don't Personally, I can't imagine how many people would argue with the goal of increasing transparency for instance um as You know as a mission that one would enter state office with but I am curious about what What is your hope? Were you to be elected and join? The the the house What is your hope for making change in that area? Is it that you hope to be part of a larger movement of people? You know the others who have subscribed as you have uh Taking that transparency pledge that you because I would think you need Like there are limits to what you could do as one representative. So what is You know, let's just let's just assume for the purposes of the conversation or this part of it. You get in You're voted in What can you do? To address These issues again around transparency in just the way that the this particular state house is So I I am part of a movement of candidates and um some already elected officials who have taken this transparency pledge and um So if there are enough of us, we could actually amend the rules and just make it better permanently But if there aren't we've pledged that we will publish our votes if We'll publish our votes in committee. We will um if we're chair of a committee publish all the votes from that committee So and I If I can tell you a little bit more about the unusual coalition we built for walk to the hill um One of the things that we did we realized that the speaker at the time tom finner and for those who remember when he used to be our speaker um now a felon ex felon um he um Was really determined not to provide any additional funding for legal aid and the funding had just eroded year by year because of inflation And it was really at a crisis point of layoffs and that kind of thing And the coalition that we assembled in the end we realized he didn't care if you brought low-income people up To talk to reps literally that just did not budge anything and so we realized that there was this whole group that was um potentially influential and sympathetic and it was people who went to law school with these legal aid attorneys Really cared about and maybe did a little pro bono law really cared about access to justice But worked at big firms and worked at big companies So we assembled a group of about 35 corporate councils from major corporations based in massachusetts And they we had them do a press conference and that totally got the speaker's attention because it was big name companies And then we also got Attorneys from all these firms and it's an annual event now It really is influential because it's something that an attorney can do If you're billing out by the hour your out your time is just really tight And so it you know if you but if you work on a firm at a firm in boston downtown boston Which a lot of people do it's just a couple hours out of your day Once a year and you walk to the hill and you see your rep and you tell them why access to justice is important to you um as a you know Attorney at foley hoad or something you know and all of a sudden they're like, uh And you know it really has made a huge difference in Having those people listen to and yes, then we do also bring low-income people who can really speak to it but they're speaking you know when we have all those attorneys assembled and You know then the legislators want to come and then the person can speak to the real situation in their lives so Yeah, I think sometimes you have to be a little strategic And I am ready to do that and I um, you know, I've built long-term Partnerships public private partnerships of all different kinds the other thing I've done in my career Is I've done a lot of work in the nonprofit a sector in education And in that role as I would have led the largest nonprofit partner with the Cambridge public schools and it's uh agency There's about a half a million dollar budget and runs programming before during and after school in the Cambridge public schools and we had a number of partnerships with Tech biotech pharma companies engineering firms and these were long-term partnerships that we started You know, I started a partnership with Novartis that I think again It's been about 20 years now since they came to Cambridge Um, and they mentor students in seventh grade in the public schools And it's hard to sustain partnerships. It takes work and it takes trust and Effort and I'm willing to put that time and effort in You know, there are many times when those programs could have failed, you know, the Cambridge public school is totally restructured And in any normal environment Like the the volunteer projects would have just come to a close because that school closed and the teachers were different And we facilitated to make sure that those relationships continued because it was about making connecting the students the children With mentors and it was really important that it keep going so You know, we have um only it's time is flying. It always does. Uh, we have only about seven eight minutes To go. I wanted to give you an opportunity. Uh, you did you did have a chance in a recent debate That you were involved into really elaborate pretty well on on the your your particular priorities, but Go ahead and pick one or two Uh of the things that you you know are most important to you about why you're running and what you want to do And tell us some more so My three priorities are fixing the T Addressing climate change and reinvesting in our UMass system and our public schools And I guess I am a public school parent and I'd like to speak a little bit about schools and school funding So, um, when we talk about local aid the funding that flows into cities and towns from the state One of the biggest buckets is chapter 70 money, which is for education public education in our cities and towns and The legislature after dragging its feet and dragging its feet There was this thing called the foundation budget review committee. It said that we were under funding education by one to two billion dollars Back in 2015 And then nothing happened nothing happened. Finally, they passed an act to address this called the student opportunity act and it was supposed to then Over seven years each year one seventh of the funding to get us over seven years to the full funding that would be needed to make up for Things like really rising healthcare costs special education costs The cost of educating low-income students who might need additional services or english language learners And some special stuff for rural districts So all things I might say that we have been wrestling with here in arlington. Yeah, of course. Yeah So, um Finally finally they passed it and now they're saying because of Covid and revenues that they're not going to fund it So it was considered local aid will be level funded, which was good plus a little inflation But they're not going to fund the student opportunity act And here's what I would like to say about spending right now It may seem counter-intuitive and you may feel like well the state should not spend When we're in a recession, but what I will say to you is Recessions get worse if you cut spending if you do austerity measures It actually counter-intuitively makes your recession longer and worse And if the state steps up and provides money for essential services Um of all kinds and I'll just use this as one example You get out of your recession more quickly and I mean, we hope it's not a full recession But it could be if we don't make the right choices And I think funding the student opportunity act is one of the right choices We should be making and I would prioritize that in my work at the state house Well, you know, it does seem from our talk with our chats with you know our our Sean Garberley, Dave Rogers, the state representative Cindy Friedman as the senator that They are really under you know under a lot of pressure to find money when the money is you know So so where would where if if we're going to take that step that you're saying to fund things You know as much or more in in order to you know The effect that that will have where will that money come from? Where would you get it? Where would you get it from? So we've had a number of tax cuts over the years since 1998. We've had about three billion dollars in tax cuts and um We could decide that we are going to raise certain taxes in order to raise revenues Um, they did do a slight adjustment to the corporate taxes, but there could be more I often talk about the corporate tax is As something that should be funding transit because companies are really worried about how other people are going to get to work And I think they're realizing as much as we fought for and ask for these tax cuts Is it really working out for us if our employees can't make it into work? Um reliably on the t and they can't on the roads either because as soon as we go back to work We'll be back in that worst in the nation traffic that we had last fall and into the winter So I think that we can expect our corporations to do more We can expect our wealthy citizens to do more and again, they are benefiting from a good economy if we It's not to stick it to somebody It's listen We all can do better if you would chip in a little more So that we can all have a better quality of life and your employees can too And I think that that's important and I think we can make that case and make that choice So we've got only a minute or two Um, what else would you like to make sure the voters know? I just want to make sure that people know that this year Voting by mail is safe and secure in massachusetts. You have the right to vote by mail and you Um, you may have already returned your postcard. It looks like this. Um, that came You still have time to return that if you want to request a ballot There's also an online if you go to jennifer freeze.com, which is my website Freezes spelled like french fries f r i e s Um, you can click on a link there to go to the secretary of the commonwealth's vote by mail information If you also for the first time will be able to track your ballot So if you do not get your ballot in time Or if you submit your ballot if you mail it back and it is not received in time and counted You have the right to vote in person So a lot of people who vote in primaries are like me I vote in every election and it actually gives me pain to think of not being able to vote for some reason Or having my vote not be counted So I just want to reassure people that your vote will be counted and you also have the right to go and vote in person If your vote is not counted first in time, um, you know, if you're getting your ballot and you realize it's too late Um to mail it back you can go and vote in person and that is your right You can also return your ballot to the drop box at town hall Um, so if you're worried about putting it in the mail, you can go and do that And protocol will be a good place to do that safely. I know yes And I will um, just say I ask for your vote in the democratic primary I believe that I can make a difference for all of us and I am just honored for the opportunity to speak to all the voters and um, thank you for having me today james and Thank you to the voters for tuning in and for doing the work of democracy Well, I agree on all counts. I want to thank you for joining us today jennifer frieze And you the viewers for tuning in Hopefully you got some valuable information. I'm sure you did Um, thank you to everybody for joining us for this one-on-one conversation with candidate for 24th Middle sex district state representative jennifer frieze from kate bridge Um, thanks again, jenn. Thank you. I'm james melanne.