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

Information Systems Technical Guide

The Guide is organized based on a four-step process aimed at procuring a new technology solution: project preparation, needs analysis, selection, and implementation. At the beginning of each section, a figure indicates which tool(s) accompany that section, the activities the institution should undertake, and the key considerations.
Blog

Segmenting the “Bottom of the Pyramid” in Mexico

Reaching the poor with a range of useful, convenient, and affordable financial services is challenging for all the reasons we know. In the context of Mexico, access has increased significantly in the past few years (nearly 60% of all households), and changes in regulation enabling correspondent banking are likely to bring the access barrier down even further.
Blog

A Bold Move Toward Simplifying AML/CFT: Lessons from Mexico

Regulators around the world today are beginning to realize that the chances of expanding access through branchless banking can be very limited without reducing the account-opening requirements through agents and mobile phones. The challenge is to strike the right balance between reducing account-opening requirements while maintaining basic controls for AML/CFT.
Blog

Mexico: Promising Moves Towards New Banking Models

Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in a few key countries. Last week we presented our learnings from Brazil. Today we continue with our analysis of Mexico and share this summary note on the Mexican branchless banking industry.