Staff Directory

Xavier Faz

Lead, Financial Services for Equality and Growth

Xavier Faz is the lead for CGAP’s work on technology and business models in digital finance. His area of work includes emerging technologies, fintech and digital banking, as well as open platforms. He is also CGAP’s Regional Head for Latin America & the Caribbean.

Prior to CGAP, Xavier was VP of Strategic Planning for a development bank in Mexico, where he helped launch a line of services offering low cost banking infrastructure and payments to microfinance and nonbank financial institutions in that market. He also worked with McKinsey & Company in Mexico and Central America, supporting large organizations in banking, retail and consumer goods, in leveraging emerging technologies to launch new base-of-the-pyramid businesses. Before that, Xavier was a Systems Engineer at several startups in Mexico and Silicon Valley, as well as Field Engineer for Schlumberger in North Africa.

Xavier has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and an Engineering degree in Electronic Systems from the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, México.

By Xavier Faz

Research

The Potential of Digital Data

The amount of electronic data generated by computerization—digital data—is growing at unprecedented rates. Financial services are an information business—can this growing wealth of data be harnessed to advance financial inclusion?
Blog

Five Lessons about Agent Networks in Peru

CGAP recently completed a study of five agent networks in Peru comprising more than 26,000 agents and 24 million monthly transactions to identify key success factors in reaching poor and rural areas.
Research

Driving Scale and Density of Agent Networks in Perú

Beyond banking, mobile networks also use agents to sell airtime and offer other payments services. In 2005 Perú enacted agent banking rules, and since then a number of players and models have emerged.
Blog

5 Sources of Untapped Innovation in Digital Finance

Innovators, often in developed markets, are piloting powerful new value propositions for customers building on digital channel attributes. Many of these solutions do not target the poor, but the implications can be easily extrapolated to poor and low-income customers.
Blog

Hype or Hope? Implications of Big Data for Financial Inclusion

Financial services traditionally delivered in-person are increasingly going to be complemented by virtual models of financial service delivery. Data will be a key enabler.