Singapore

THE Covid-19 pandemic is supercharging the digital revolution and presenting regulators with an opportunity to narrow financial inequities in their countries, Bill Gates has said.

"Digital things overall, whether it's remote learning or telemedicine or digital finance, were greatly advanced. So even though the pandemic has been terrible, it has pushed for some of these innovations," he said, in a speech at the annual Singapore FinTech Festival x Singapore Week of Innovation & TeCHnology (SFF x SWITCH) via virtual conference on Tuesday.

"In this area (of) digital financial inclusion, it's gotten the governments to say: 'Wow, we really need to fix this'."

The billionaire, who, together with his wife Melinda, co-chairs the world's wealthiest charity, said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working towards enabling two-thirds of the world to gain financial access within the next 10 years.

He cited World Bank data showing the disparity in financial access across the world: As at 2017, 94 per cent of adults in high-income countries had an account either with a bank, financial institution or mobile-money service provider. In low-income countries, this proportion falls to 35 per cent.

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Countries like India and Kenya have, in recent years, put in place technologies to improve digital financial inclusion, said Mr Gates, who was speaking to journalists at the week-long festival.

His foundation, which has an endowment of over US$40 billion, supports India's nation-wide open-source identity platform MOSIP (Modular Open-Source Identity Platform), which serves as the backbone for effective delivery of public and private services. During the coronavirus pandemic, it has enabled the authorities to channel financial help digitally to millions locked down in their villages.

Central banks and financial institutions are key to facilitating financial inclusion in a digital age, Mr Gates said.

The foundation's work involves getting central banks comfortable with these new approaches, when they see the success and that the open-source toolkit has worked to track down mistakes and make the systems reliable, he said.

And in some ways, they may find these approaches better than cash, as central banks "can go back and audit what's going on", he added.

"We think that, over the next five years, most of the central banks will see it's okay to do this, because the building blocks are very accessible and there is almost a straightforward way that they can get their citizens all connected up."

Mr Gates also said it is "absolutely critical" to narrow the persisting gender gap in financial inclusion. He noted that studies have shown that money that comes under the control of women in a household will more likely be used for pro-family expenditures such as nutrition and education.

Commenting on the Covid-19 vaccine furore, he said he expects about six vaccines to be approved by the first quarter of next year, with the addition of vaccines made by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and NovaVax, to those from Pfizer and Moderna that have shown effective results against the novel coronavirus.

Even as they are approved, equitable distribution of the vaccines will be key. He said it needs to be somewhat equitably carried out, so that access to the vaccine is not determined by individuals' levels of wealth.

The cooperation demonstrated in generating these vaccines is worth celebrating, but national governments cannot let their guard down again, in the case of another pandemic, he said.

"Governments are there to think ahead to bad things that might happen. In the case of (the Covid-19) pandemic, not enough was done. We can't forget that another pandemic will come, and we'll need to invest in being ready for that.

"So there is a bright side and we just have to take full advantage of that, while not forgetting that we were not prepared and we're going to have to invest - just like having a fire department - some money in an intelligent way and actually simulate what might happen and make sure that we're ready for it."

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