WC-FINC aims to reduce the average financial exclusion level in ASEAN to 30% by 2025, and increase the level of infrastructure readiness in ASEAN to 85% (currently at 70%), based on agreed measures of financial inclusion outcomes and preconditions. Particular emphasis is given to capacity building and peer learning. An especially interesting part of this journey has been ASEAN’s incredible diversity which provides a rich and broad canvass for drawing lessons from every country on specific challenges faced and measures pursued to increase financial inclusion. For some of us, the geographic barriers to financial inclusion are the most urgent, for 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  others, cost or knowledge and trust are more significant barriers. In different ways, we all have something to learn from each other’s experience on strategies that worked or did not work so well. This is why we are here today. This Forum on financial inclusion was organised in response to technical assistance requests and learning needs of ASEAN countries based on a survey conducted by WC-FINC last year. There was particular interest in Malaysia’s experience and so we volunteered to host this first Forum, but clearly, we are also eager to learn from others. The Forum focuses on 5 key areas which represent core pillars of a holistic financial inclusion system. The first is the development of a national financial inclusion strategy and monitoring mechanism which are crucial to ensure that strategies are well targeted, coordinated and executed.
Or: With expanded markets and choice available for high net worth customers, will it make it harder for domestic financial institutions to continue supporting inclusion outcomes that are partly cross-subsidised by high net worth business today? Correspondingly, to what extent will this impact the cost of financial services for the poor, potentially making them even more unaffordable than before? Or: Are there opportunities to bring new technologies and emerging practice into domestic markets and simultaneously create an environment for them to take root and spawn original domestic applications that will create additional multiplier effects? Or: How might easier cross-border access encourage new business partnerships that would enable financial institutions to penetrate untapped customer segments more efficiently and reduce associated information asymmetries? Answers to such questions can be important in how we think about and approach financial integration. Ultimately, behaviour matters, and therefore needs to be explicitly addressed in financial integration strategies. Unless we also turn our attention to the behavioural responses of financial actors in a more financially integrated region, we may find that our best efforts to strengthen the pillars for greater financial inclusion ultimately does not deliver as expected. Financial inclusion and financial integration strategies therefore need to come together through deliberate approaches that are mutually reinforcing.