Date: Monday, May 15th, 2017
Time: 10:00am-4:30pm
Location: CIESAS OCCIDENTE, Auditorio Guillermo de la Peña Topete, Av. España 1359 Colonia Moderna, 44190 Guadalajara, Mexico
Contact information: comunicacionoccte@ciesas.edu.mx, (33)32680600 ext. 3040

About the Seminar
In partnership with CIESAS, CONACYT and the University of Geneva, IMTFI is pleased to present this upcoming two-day seminar/think-tank focusing on the issue of financial inclusions in Latin America. The purpose is to bring together researchers, policymakers and front line field-workers who are involved in research and/or practice on this topic to discuss the implications of diverse forms of financial inclusion, taking cases from Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Argentina.

In a context of accelerated financialization, there is no doubt that promoting access to adequate financial services should be acknowledged as key in helping poor and disadvantaged people accommodate to current living standards (making deposits, cashing out government transfers, borrowing, saving, sending remittances, making payments, etc.), but financial services towards low-income population (irregular incomes, weak social protection, etc.) have not always been promoted with the view to provide high quality services at a low price. While commercial approaches to microfinance have resulted in aggressive competition and have been in many ways detrimental to the poorest (overindebtedness), other actors have shown concern with trying to find a trade-off between social mission and financial sustainability. Challenges include appropriate access to funding, adequate regulation, balance between growth and quality of service and the possibility of scaling up.

Dilemmas considering processes of inclusion include the issue of social and solidarity economy: To what degree does bancarization support or curtail such initiatives? How does financial inclusion favor or impede social sector's potential of coping with everyday life?

SCHEDULE
OPENING:
10:00-11:00 Inauguration. Agustín Escobar (CIESAS)
Opening Keynote: Design and Implementation of Financial Inclusion Strategies by Carlos Alberto Moya Franco (Alliance for Financial Inclusion). Moderated by Magdalena Villarreal (CIESAS Occidente)

PANEL 1:
Efforts around digitization and its effects. 11:00-13:00
Solène Morvant and Mariana Carmona Ambriz: Beyond the microfinance. Digital financial inclusion as a form of insertion of the global peripheries
Nancy Esthela Conde Castillo: Efforts around digitization and its effects
María Elisa Balen: The revolution of mobile banking that has not been: transfers of government to people and inclusion in two rural areas of Colombia
Ursula Dalinghaus: De-Cashing or Cashing in? Implications of India's demonetization move for global debates on the future of cash
Moderated by Magdalena Villarreal

Coffee break-13:00-13:30

PANEL 2:
Financial inclusions "from below". 13:30-15:00
Leandro Morais: Social and Solidarity Economy, Financial Inclusion and Territorial Development: the case of the Bank Palms
Isabel Cruz: Popular finance and remittance reception in Mexico
Reynaldo Marconi: Financial Inclusion in Bolivia: Advances and Uncertainties in Regulatory Environments and Changing Public Policies
Moderated by Solène Morvant

PANEL 3:
Implications of Financial Inclusions. 16:30-18:00
Clément Crucifix "Your life is counted in numbers" Intermediary actors, subjectivities and dependency networks in rural Mexico
Eugenia Correa Vazquez: Financial Inclusion: Crisis and Banking in Mexico
Enrique García: To Save or Invest? Reflections about money movement
Moderated by María Elisa Balen

Coffee break-18:00-18:30

CLOSING:
18:30-19:30 Closing Keynote: Financial exploitation of informal workers in Argentina  by Alexandre Roig (National University of San Martin, Argentina). Moderator: Magdalena Villarreal (CIESAS Occidente)