Implications of Mandatory Registration of Mobile Phone Users in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa ranks among the top regions in terms of growth in the number of mobile phone users. The success of mobile telephony is attributed to the opening of markets for private players and lenient regulatory policy. However, markets may be increasingly saturated and new regulations introduced across Africa could also have a negative impact on future growth. Since 2006, the majority of countries in the region have introduced mandatory registration of users of prepaid SIM cards with their personal identity details. This potentially increases the costs of using mobile telephony. I present a fixed effects model for the estimation of the impact of mandatory registration on mobile penetration growth, which is based upon a panel dataset of 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the years 2000 to 2010. The results show that the introduction of mandatory registration depresses growth in mobile penetration.Telecommunication, government policy, consumer protection, privacy

Do we need a European Directive for Credit Reporting?

Kreditsicherung, EU-Bankrecht, Europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion, Credit risk collateralization, EU bank law, European Economic and Monetary Union

Financial Services for the Poor: Lack of Personal Identification Documents Impedes Access

Without a birth certificate, no identity card can be issued and without identity card, there is no access to formal financial services. This link seems to be trivial in industrialized countries, where the ability of the individual to participate in economic life is rarely hindered by a lack of identification. In many developing countries, however, access to financial services is often denied, because potential customers cannot be identified based upon official identity documents-a basic due diligence requirement under international anti-money laundering regulations. In many developing and emerging countries, poor people have no opportunity to obtain such documents, as a large portion of the population has not been registered at birth. Without a birth certificate, however, no identity card can be issued, which is required by banks for customer identity verification. To date, the problem of identification has not played a prominent role in research concerning access to financial services. In the past, researchers have primarily focused on microfinance. In order to expand access to formal financial services, new methods for customer identification must be developed which address the realities in developing countries. Initial steps to expand access for the poor population have already been taken in countries such as India and South Africa. Aside from addressing problems associated with missing identification, it is also necessary to introduce basic financial products such as micro accounts, where the low risk associated with them is taken into account. Less demanding identification means for low-risk financial products ought to be internationally recognized and instituted in order to dispel legal ambiguities.

Credit Reporting, Access to Finance and Identification Systems: International Evidence

Credit reporting systems are an important ingredient for financial markets. These systems are based upon the unique identification of borrowers, which is enabled if a compulsory identification system exists in a country. We present evidence derived from difference-in-difference analyses on the impact of the interplay of credit reporting and identification systems on financial access and intermediation in 172 countries during years of 2000 to 2008. Our results suggest that the introduction of an identification system has a positive effect on financial intermediation (bank credit to deposits) and financial access (private credit to GDP), especially in countries where there is also a credit reporting system. This effect exists net of other country characteristics.Credit markets, information asymmetries, identification

Finanzdienstleistungen für Arme: Zugang scheitert an fehlenden Ausweisen

Ohne Geburtsurkunde kein Personalausweis, ohne Ausweis kein Zugang zu Finanzdienstleistungen - dieser Zusammenhang mag in Industrieländern als trivial erscheinen. Die gleichberechtigte Teilhabe am ökonomischen Leben scheitert hier nicht an fehlenden Ausweisdokumenten. In vielen Entwicklungsländern hingegen bleibt der Zugang zu Finanzdienstleistungen verwehrt, weil eine einfache Grundvoraussetzung wie die zweifelsfreie Kundenidentifikation nicht erfüllt werden kann. Diese basiert auf der Sorgfaltspflicht, welche Banken durch internationale Anti-Geldwäsche-Richtlinien auferlegt wird. In vielen Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern haben insbesondere arme Menschen keinerlei Möglichkeit in den Besitz von amtlichen Ausweisdokumenten zu gelangen, da ein großer Teil der Bevölkerung bei Geburt nicht registriert wird. Die Geburtsurkunde ist aber notwendige Vorraussetzung für die Ausstellung von Personalausweisen, welche für die Legitimationsprüfung bei der Bank benötigt werden. Das Problem der Identifizierung hat bislang in der Forschung über den Zugang zu Finanzdienstleistungen keine prominente Rolle gespielt. In der Vergangenheit konzentrierte sich die Aufmerksamkeit vor allem auf Mikrofinanzierung . Um den Zugang zu formalen Finanzdienstleistungen zu erhöhen, müssen neue Verfahren der Kundenidentifikation entwickelt werden, die den Realitäten der Entwicklungsländer entsprechen. Erste Ansätze, die erfolgreich einem Teil der armen Bevölkerung den Zugang eröffnen, sind in Ländern wie Indien und Südafrika bereits erkennbar. Notwendig ist auch die Einführung von Basisfinanzprodukten, wie Kleinstkonten, welche auf einer stärkeren Spreizung der risiko-orientierten Identifizierung basieren. Diese Spreizung sollte international anerkannt und festgeschrieben werden, um Maßnahmen in diesem Bereich aus der rechtlichen Grauzone zu holen

Wettbewerbspolitik in digitalen Märkten: Sollte Datenschutz eine Rolle spielen?

In diesem Jahr steht in Deutschland die Novellierung des Gesetzes gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (GWB) an. Das Reformvorhaben hat eine intensive Debatte um die Neuorientierung der Wettbewerbspolitik in digitalen Märkten entfacht. Während es einen Konsens gibt, dass der existierende Rechtsrahmen den neuen Bedingungen digitaler Märkte angepasst werden muss, bestehen unterschiedliche Positionen in Bezug auf die Rolle großer Datensammlungen und des Datenschutzes in der Wettbewerbspolitik. Konkret geht es um die Frage, ob Datenbanken und Datenschutzfragen in Fusionskontrolle und Missbrauchsaufsicht künftig einbezogen werden sollten

Horizontal and Vertical Analysis of Privacy and Cyber-Security Markets

Deliverable 4.2 (\u201cHorizontal and Vertical Analysis of Privacy and Cyber-Security Markets\u201d) provides an in-depth discussion of economic incentives, stakeholder engagement and market opportunities in privacy and cyber-security. This report first introduces the reader to the horizontal market analysis, which covers firms active at the same stage of the production chain in the privacy and cyber-security industry and present key market segmentations.The report also presents the vertical analysis of players at different stages of the production chain in the PACS industry. These relations are covered as security in the supply chain is of utmost importance: only secure inputs ensure a secure product as final output. The report also covers engagement and assessment of stakeholders in the privacy and security chain and their relation to PACS in the ICT sector. The report gives several case studies on vertical relations and includes an empirical analysis of incentive schemes. The proposed innovation value chain connects inputs and outputs in the production of PACS goods and services and their relation to economic incentives.Finally, a preliminary scheme on mapping privacy and personal data product and service markets is proposed. Firms active in these markets can be categorized according to their generic value chain, where some use the identification of the user as key input and others do not. The report provides economic incentive templates that enable market players and regulators to potentially better map the markets.The following scheme outlines in brief the relation of the two deliverables D4.1 and D4.2 to the developed Privacy and Cyber-Security Market Scheme. It enables the reader to see what is covered in the different deliverables and to what deliverable he/she needs to turn in order to find the information of interest

Stakeholder Engagement and Integration into the Framework

This document is an IPACSO service document for the European Commission. It\u2019s main purpose is to outline the contribution and integration of work package 4 into the IPACSO framework. Moreover, it explains stakeholder engagement and the economic incentivization techniques for enabling the adoption of the IPACSO framework. Due to the fact that such incentivization is not directly related to a market and incentives analysis, it was set aside in order to obtain an extra document (deliverable), which is also explicitly mentioned in the IPACSO Description of Work