Together, the normative standards and advisory guidance of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI), and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) have significant influence on how many poor households get access to what range and quality of formal financial services and at what cost. While these five standard-setting bodies (SSBs) have varying relevance and importance to financial inclusion, all matter and all are increasingly engaged on the subject. This white paper aims to raise awareness and frame issues to inform ongoing work by the five SSBs to integrate financial inclusion into standards and guidance that can be effectively applied at the country level.
For the SSBs, embracing the goal of full financial inclusion represents a potentially significant shift of focus and requires a commensurate evolution in thinking, and the SSBs are at different stages in this evolution. Some of the issues to be considered are specific to the mandate of each SSB, while others are jointly relevant to multiple SSBs. On both types of issues, joint engagement offers the SSBs the opportunity to understand each other’s perspective and to learn from each other. It also holds the promise of SSB standards and guidance that help countrylevel policy makers balance priorities as they pursue a broad financial inclusion agenda.