The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held its 10th annual meeting on the theme, "Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development", in João Pessoa, Brazil, on 10 to 13 November 2015.
At the Forum, the Internet Society of China (ISC), the CAST Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology, and the CNNIC co-organized workshop entitled "Mobile Payment Boosts Internet Economy and Challenges". The workshop invited multi-stakeholder from different angles to present and discuss how mobile payment further promote Internet economy development, what are the feasible policies to promote mobile payment development in a global manner and keep its security for user.
During the workshop, the panelists gave some introduction of mobile payment development in developing world, especially analyzing the reasons why mobile payment got popular in some African countries. On the other hand, some challenges were raised such as the online ID theft, malware threaten. Based on above background, the panelists provided several policy advices, for example, from the perspective of regulator’s role.
Dr. Xiaofeng Tao, Professor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, gave a presentation on China's mobile payment development status, particularly by introducing several cases of mobile payment improving life in rural areas of China. Dr. Tao concerned two issues as the importance to the mobile payment industry, one was the security transaction, and the other one was user's education or science popularization.
Mr. Hossam Elgamal, Board member of African Information & Communication Technologies Alliance, share with the development information about mobile payment in Africa. He cited the statistics of GSME that in 2014 nearly 70% of the globe's 82 million mobile customer are from Africa, as transferring cash from one reason to another in Africa is somehow dangerous, mainly African citizen do not use normal bank. Another important reason people rely on mobile payment mainly is to prevent potential fraudulent crime. Generally, the North Africa region and the east were much slower in having mobile payment, presented by Mr. Elgamal.
Mr. Ricardo Pedraza Barrios, Advisor of the Communications Regulation Commission of Colombia, introduced that there were now over 2.5 billion people that still do not use the banking and the financial institution. So there is a huge potential to come and bring in services to them. He also raised some policy advice from perspective of role of regulation. One advice to other regulators was to be trying to become an evangelist of the benefits of what this kind of solutions and apps brings for the local communities. The other role of the regulator was adviced to guide the legislative body of the government to understand that they need to obey the existing laws that in some way impede the development and rapid adoption of the Digital Economy solutions. The last advice called for the need to honor with the different actors the private sector, the civil society to create trust for the online environment.
Mr. Paul Mitchell, Senior Director, Tech Policy, Department of Legal and Corporate Affairs of Microsoft, reiterated that whether it's a credit card like we would use here or a mobile device like they're using there, the primary issue in sustainability and in sort of alleviating poverty on a permanent basis is finding a way to put it together in a committee ecosystem way where it's generative and helping the community.
After the presentation, the panelists had active interaction with the audience both on-site and remote with discussing the topics about relationship between mobile payment and economy, transaction security, system interoperability, innovation, telecom service etc.
(Stev)
