English transcript

Well we believe having the ability to save and transact is something that should be universal and a lot of forms have adopted that goal.

We won't be able to do that with traditional systems, that is the cost of bank branches and paperwork, it's just too high.

But fortunately, starting with countries like Kenya and more recently with a robust system in places like India, we see that you can have digital financial inclusion.

India is a great example, they did a lot of their own technology which won't be possible for other countries.

And so the role of the Gates Foundation as an advocate for those who don't have access today is to make sure there's technology and standards including open source work that we're providing through the financial switch which is called Mojaloop and through the digital identity system which is extremely valuable not just for financial activities but for health and voting and education and that's called MoSIP.

Since there isn't going to be a one size fits all solution, what is the role that you see the private sector playing in being able to collaborate with different governments to ensure that we move forward?

Well once you have the digital money system, then there's all sorts of services and applications that can be built on top of that, whether it's helping with health or education or agriculture, giving people visibility into their financial status, giving them advice, should they take a loan, should they buy insurance, what makes sense.

The phone becomes a connection for low cost interaction with those customers that doesn't require human activity that would be beyond the means that people are trying to get to who don't yet have these accounts.

So the digital revolution which of course was where I worked before moving full time to the foundation, here we're trying to make sure that the developing countries have the benefit of the digital revolution, in some cases before it gets to even some of the rich countries who have legacy systems that people are so used to that the speed that they'll transition out of them won't be as fast as say China or India that didn't have that here.

And so it's really learning what worked in China and India and now making it easy for even smaller countries to do this, working with a lot of partners including the World Bank, African Development Bank, many of them.

So private sector will help these central banks create these systems, but moreover the phone companies, the banks and the entrepreneurs will build applications that use these financial capabilities.