Qatar Ranks First on World Digital Access Index

Jean-Claude Farah, President of Western Union in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Pacific region, said that the countries of the Middle East have realized during the past period the importance of financial inclusion, as some of them launched many initiatives in this framework, including the State of Qatar, which has prepared Financial Inclusion Strategy in 2018, And that came shortly after it established its financial regulation strategy to provide a strong regulatory framework that supports prosperity and protects financial stability.

Its tireless efforts have resulted in ranking the country among the top ten out of 80 countries around the world, according to a study conducted by Ronald Berger between 2017-2020 that focused on enhancing digital inclusion among its residents, and Qatar ranked first in the world in the Digital Access Rights Assessment Index for the year 2020 issued by the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies.

The international financial official added, in a research note entitled “Digital Financial Inclusion is a Global Responsibility” that continuing to find ways, whether banking or non-banking, to involve everyone in the global financial system, such as linking digital networks with retail networks, contributes to serving consumers better and more comprehensively.

This is what prompted Western Union to build a cross-border platform that gives consumers multiple options to send money from anywhere. With the diversity and expansion of individual needs, strategic partnerships with telecom and financial services providers play a crucial role, as the expansion of the financial ecosystem by integrating the capabilities of our platform with leading external platforms and markets enables us to help more consumers in different geographical, cultural and economic regions and meet their daily financial needs.

He added that the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of global cooperation and solidarity in reaching solutions to combat the epidemic, and this, in turn, shows the importance of accelerating global cooperation between sectors to establish an infrastructure that ensures equal access for all and contributes to achieving financial and digital inclusion.

The finance official referred to what Jim Yong Kim, the 12th president of the World Bank Group, said earlier that all possibilities are available to access financial services, thanks to new technologies, transfer models, and promising reforms taken to enhance the capabilities of individuals to access those services.

This is thanks to new technologies, transfer models, and promising reforms taken to enhance the capabilities of individuals to access these services, after Ten years, we see that the gap between individuals who have access and those who are unable to access these services is increasing at an accelerating pace despite the entry of digitization into the financial services sector, and the unremitting efforts made to address the existing gap, which confirms that there is much work to be done.