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How are big FinTechs impacting the least developed countries?

UNDP UNCDF Big Fintech

Every big tech platform is becoming a Fintech these days. What does this mean for the world’s most vulnerable people and fragile environments?

The hiveonline research team recently contributed expert knowledge and core arguments to a series of papers, led by our research partner Katherine Foster and published by UNCDF and UNDP, on the impact of big FinTech companies on the least developed countries. The purpose of the research is to inform policymakers such as central banks when making policy and regulatory decisions governing these entities, which is becoming increasingly challenging. The papers were commissioned following the output of the UN’s Digital Finance Task Force, People’s Money, earlier this year. Here’s what they said about them:

During its investigations, the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the SDGs recognized that digitalization is not only reshaping the world of finance; it is also driving the emergence of a new generation of global, dominant digital finance platforms (BigFintechs) with increasing cross-border spillover effects on many areas of sustainable development across the world, particularly in developing economies. 

The Dialogue on Global Digital Finance Governance, hosted by UNDP and UNCDF, was established to explore this topic with an aim to catalyze governance innovations that take greater account of the SDG impacts of BigFintechs and are more inclusive of the voices of developing nations. To this end, the Dialogue has produced the following series of Technical Papers that bring new, complementary perspectives on the nexus of BigFintechs, sustainable development and governance.

– UNCDF / UNDP

hiveonline contributed to Papers 1.1, 1.1B and 1.2, addressing the critical issues of economics, the proliferation of new types of money and the impact on many of the more neglected SDGs. You can download the papers here.

  • Summary Paper: BigFintechs and Sustainability: A Necessary Convergence
  • Technical Paper 1.1: BigFintechs and their impacts on sustainable development
  • Technical Paper 1.1: Annexes 1-6 
  • Technical Paper 1.1B: BigFintechs and their impacts on macroeconomic policies
  • Technical Paper 1.2: Digital currencies and CBDC impacts on Least Developed Countries
  • Technical Paper 2.1: BigFintechs and the UN SDGs: the role of corporate governance innovations (to be published soon)
  • Technical Paper 3.1: Policymakers, BigFintechs and the United Nations SDGs
  • Technical Paper 3.2: BigFintechs and international governance, policymaking and the UN SDGs: the SDGs in the international governance of finance
  • Technical Paper 3.3: A principles-based approach to the governance of BigFintech (to be published soon)