ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services Ecosystem

This Report by ITU, defines the Digital Financial Services ecosystem and describes the players and their roles within the Ecosystem. These players include users (consumers, businesses, government agencies and non-profit groups) who have needs for digital and interoperable financial products and services; providers (banks, other licensed financial institutions, and non-banks) who supply those products and services through digital means; the financial, technical, and other infrastructures that make them possible; and the governmental policies, laws and regulations which enable them to be delivered in an accessible, affordable, and safe manner.

The report recognizes a goal of reaching “digital liquidity” – a state wherein consumers and businesses are content to leave their funds in digital form, therefore reducing the burden of the “cash-in”, “cash-out” process. Various high-level challenges and issues in the ecosystem are acknowledged in the report: many of these are the subject of more detailed reports produced by the Focus Group. Finally, the report looks at the many products and services that comprise the DFS ecosystem.