Hey there, this is Lawil and welcome to a special episode of the Future Money Podcast. This month, we're doing something a little bit different. As we wrap up this amazing year, it's a great opportunity to reflect on the conversations we've had with our ecosystem on digital financial inclusion. Over the past 12 months, we've witnessed remarkable progress in bridging the financial gap with our ecosystem flourishing and initiatives touching countless lives.
The conversations featured on the Future Money Podcast showcase the ongoing dialogue about the challenges and opportunities in creating a more inclusive financial system for all. For this wrap up, we've curated a selection of thoughts that our guests have shared with us. But before we revisit these memorable moments, we'd like to thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Future Money Podcast.
And as always, don't forget to subscribe and like the show on Castlebot, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Or wherever you listen to your pods. We often hear about the rise of digital transactions as a marker of advancement. In the documentary, Bringing Down a Mountain, Subhashish Panigrahi, the creator and director asked viewers to explore the evolving relationship between digital transactions and financial inclusion and to challenge these assumptions.
Just because somebody is using digital transactions doesn't mean that they have more access to money. Um, it's just another medium of transaction. A lot of transactions used to happen in different ways, and now they're being tracked and we know that there, these transactions are happening that really doesn't change the status quo for, for majority of the people.
So I think one really has to understand that very clearly that digital transactions don't mean financial inclusion, digital transactions just mean that there's a different mode of transaction, and that is more of More of a natural evolution of everything to me that we are using technology more than we were using before, and a lot of things that were happening sort of in analog or physical forms that are happening digitally now, and we're able to track, we're able to generate data.
It would have been really hard to do that. And, you know, it would have been really impossible actually to know how many people are using phones to a transaction. So I think, yeah, there's that. Um, so I think the other part, what the film also explores is the, uh, sort of ambiguity.
where it's not very conclusive to say that things have radically changed and there's digital transaction and there's access to mobile data or there's access to devices or there's access to sort of know how and everything has changed. I think it kind of stops at a place where we say that people have. Now power, uh, they have access to that, uh, sort of socioeconomic power that they never had. And they are deciding for themselves, they're exploring and they're figuring out things for themselves.
So it kind of ends there saying that, you know, there's just one mountain that's down and there's another mountain a few miles ahead. What that means is that. We are also not seeing sort of a magical utopia of abolition. It's happening in, uh, in kind of sporadic ways. And because of that, we're seeing changes in some places and there's definitely sort of a positive vibe.
There's hope, there's effort to change the status quo of, of a community, but that doesn't mean that it has happened everywhere, that in the entire country or in all the places people have achieved that power that they never had.
It's clear that digital transaction and financial inclusion are more complex than they first appear. But let's move from finance to something that connects us all, food. With Lena Ganinjot, we dove into how food, art, and community intersect with their broader conversational inclusion. So let's listen in.
Food is the most inclusive thing we have because we all have that in common. We all eat and we all love to eat, right? And so it really connects us at a very deep level. And for me, it's, It brings me so much joy. It's very amusing as well to, you know, create a installation for an opening or do an installation in an art space. And it's usually those white cubes, right? It's very sterile and it's sometimes a bit intimidating as well.
And what I love if I do an installation in those spaces is to see people straight away, letting their guard down and, you know, starting to interact with the food and therefore starting to interact with each other. And so it really, becomes like a means for connection, something that's almost, you know, yeah, playful, almost in a childish way. I love to use food as a, as a way to, you know, make people just let their guards down and, and connect with each other in a way that's very innocent.
That's immensely fun to do. From food to a deep
dive into economic system, the exploration of financial inclusion continues. Carline Kingma, one of our guests, emphasizes the importance of challenging these existing systems and imagining something new. As we reflect on these insights, it's crucial to ask, what does the future financial system look like? Can we collectively design a system that works better for everyone? The next highlight delves into the speculative nature of economic solutions.
We can collectively decide this money system in this specific architecture is working for us. It's not inclusive. It's not, uh, uh, contributing to a sustainable economy. Um, we want something else. And then you come to the, to the next step, which is maybe even harder than understanding the current system, which is already hard. Um, and that's envisioning or being able to imagine something different.
And as I said already in the introduction, uh, about this first work, The History of Utopia, uh, envisioning a future scenario or a future, uh, is, uh, something, is a tricky business. Because you, um, always make a simplification, of course, uh, of a very large system which has been, uh, grown over time, um, yeah, and you're, you're, um, proposing something new. So what, yeah, what we decided to do is to come up with three completely different future scenarios.
Yeah, they are on an ideological scale. They are, uh, completely different from each other. They propose three completely different kind of solutions to, so they also have a different, uh, analysis of what is wrong in our now.
Yeah. And, and what Hollis asked, what I, what I forgot now to reflect upon, what we saw in also by presenting these different future scenarios, because they're also, they're all, all three of them are also a bit funny and a bit weird, but they have very different Systemic solutions. Uh, people responded quite, uh, well also always with a bit, a bit laughing and sometimes also, uh, saying that, that, that these solutions are also quite scary.
But then they also came to the conclusion that the system that we have now is also quite extreme, so that's also very beautiful. That's a beautiful conclusion. Of course, uh, we have now a system in which private companies that our banks create. the substantial part of our money. That's quite an extreme scenario. If you put them as one of the, as a, as a fourth scenario next to the three scenarios that we also proposed. So that that's already, yeah, it's, it becomes actually.
A different lens again through which you can look to our society now. And it gives you some tools to talk about your options for the future.
As Carline Kingmer explored, envisioning a different future is not an easy task, especially when it comes to challenging these entrenched systems. The three future scenarios she presented invites us to reconsider the very architecture of our current system, offering bold, sometimes unconventional solutions to our economic challenges. But these scenarios Also raise the questions about how we perceive value in our world.
Mia Wright Ross's perspective takes us deeper into this question of value, not just in terms of money, but in the broader, more inclusive sense, how do we recognize the worth of individuals and communities, especially when traditional systems of measurements like bank accounts or government issued IDs, don't always reflect the full picture of what makes someone valuable in her view.
Artists play a pivotal role in reshaping these definitions, creating spaces where value is not defined by financial systems, but by human creativity and connections.
Finance is not about value, right? Because what we're talking about is the interpretation of value. And not just the commodification of value. So yeah, I think artists, as long as we keep doing what we've been doing and not looking for anybody else to tell us what we're supposed to be doing, it will always happen because the ideas come from us. So there's that.
That's true. I really love the way you phrase that. And I think that's a, that's a really poignant way to end this. episode because I think a lot of what we're talking about, like what Interledger Foundation is focused on is this whole point of value and the intrinsic value of each individual.
And that it's not just like that your net worth defines how valuable you are in society or how value, you know, that a bank can determine like how valuable a person is, but being far more expansive about what it means to be valuable. And, you know, And respecting and recognizing even in
that
structure, it
changes on a daily basis. That's right. Like the euro versus the dollar versus yen. It changes on a regular basis. So why would I be going?
Exactly. Totally.
When in certain communities. Yes. Certain like a woven cloth is valuable. just as valuable as a dollar. So it depends on what artists or what interpretation aspect you're coming at, for sure.
That's so real. But I think just like what I'm left with to reflect on and to feel emboldened by is that like artists and creatives, they, we reset and redefine what value means and recognize that like value is not what you have in your bank account or like value is not the passport that you hold or passport you know like any of these kind of state defined mechanisms of devaluing.
Nia Wright Ross her reflections on value highlight the transformative role that artists and creators play in reshaping our understanding of value. as we move beyond the financial measures and state defined systems to something more intrinsic and expensive. This idea connects deeply with the larger conversation about financial inclusion, as it is not just about access to money, but about challenging the systems that determine who gets to decide what is valuable.
The Resimulate team of the Future Money, Arts and Culture grant of the Intellectual Foundation has been exploring these very themes in their work. where they question the conventional economic narratives and debunk myths about wealth and success. Their focus on speculative futures and financial inclusion underscores the need to imagine not just financial system but the very ideas of value that underlie them, offering a new lens through which we can envision a more equitable future.
Rather, just to work in the speculative spectrum and, and, and on absolute truths that show us the day to day, how we are going to become a millionaire or how we're going to grow a rapidly economy, no, and these traps have more to do with a series of false gurus about the economy. So that was something our, our interest at the time we were discussing how we are going to use this data. What was going to be the information that we're going to show?
I think to be clear that our way of connecting everything was going to be and it's going to be contradictory to this experience of self help.
What did financial inclusion mean to you through the process of this project and what is your vision for a financially inclusive future?
I think it goes hand in hand a little with what I was saying about how speculative all this can be.
I believe that the idea of financial inclusion, well, we wanted to work from the fictional from the speculative experience, but it was also like reviewing the data And figures of ecuador and seeing exactly how the data continues to resonate For me, I think it was very decisive How the economies are working in a country like ecuador and now thinking about the context and how this is developing also a very harsh economic reality related to economic Acclimation of
inequality that is prominent in Ecuador. So for me, I believe that part of working on that idea of financial inclusion was a little bit of working on how we debunk these myths about self help and financial management. It was a bit about that. How do we work with ideas constantly implanted in us, but how do we make them verifiable with current information? I think, I think I still, it's still within the data management.
It continues to show us despite using the ideas of self help or trying to make schemes that these, these figures of this supposed formulas of, of sauces. Well, it, it continues to give us very chilling data about the inequity in a country like Ecuador. I think it applies to, to in, in many contexts.
I share a lot of what Carlos is mentioning in the sense that, uh, well, in my research, I don't do directly financial inclusion, but I read a lot of research, academic research and financial inclusion, and there's a lot of So, uh, legal policies and that can be done to try to improve things. Now shifting from
the speculative realm of financial systems to a more practical conversation. We begin to explore how financial inclusion impacts individuals on the ground. We've heard about the myths around financial management and how we can challenge them with real data. And now you're going to hear from Uchi as he shares how his personal experience with currency exchange helped him realize the importance of financial literacy in achieving true financial inclusion.
And I lost about 30 percent of the U. S. dollars exchanging it to, to Canadian just because of the exchange rate. When I arrived in Canada, I was like, I could have just done this in the bank, or I could just have created a USD account and things like that. But I didn't have that knowledge, right? And that's why since then, I've always wanted to create opportunities for others not to be in the same situation, right? And that's why I believe that financial inclusion starts with education, right?
So providing the right education and the right learning for everyone and access to that knowledge, uh, is where financial inclusion starts.
But if you would compare it to now, uh, the internet and digital connectivity, do you believe it has increased, uh, financial literacy?
Oh yeah. Uh, connectivity has made financial inclusion Uh, definitely, uh, more mainstream, right? Many more people are financially included. And that's why there's more that we can do with including, uh, more people in the financial ecosystem, right? Because many people have access to the internet right now. And that's why I think. We should start transitioning from financial inclusion to economic empowerment, right?
Because I mean, with financial inclusion, the story has been providing access to financial services, providing access to banking services, and things like that. But I think we're, we could do more than that. And that's why AchieveMoney, we're a strong advocate of financial inclusion, but Even stronger advocates for economic empowerment. And I mean, it's a movement that we'd find with economic empowerment, we want to provide opportunities for people to end and also increase their quality of life.
So platforms and products and services that help people connect to maybe job opportunities, uh, connect to easy ways of getting paid for the value they create, and also being able to spend that value, uh, locally. So they get paid. Maybe by working a remote job for a, for a, an employer outside their country, they should be able to easily access those funds and then spend it later. That's why I think financial inclusion should evolve too. Uchi's
emphasis on moving from financial inclusion to economic empowerment aligns with the broader need to address these diverse challenges people face in accessing financial systems. Sharji highlights how financial exclusion is not just a matter of access, But also deeply intertwined with social and cultural barriers. Let's dive into her perspective on this important issue.
And even though I grew up in a quite like urban citizenship, uh, household in China, where we have a sort of like a socialist feminist infrastructure, where the double income, family in China were quite high compared to many other countries in the world. Money has always been a topic that women are supposedly not talk about. Women are very often not the one that actually like take control and have access to a lot of financial, uh, services.
Another entry point for me to understand financial inclusion was also in Europe, generally financial inclusion has been seen as like a quite a lot of like what Western and middle European country has achieved very high level of financial inclusion or almost full. But, um, as I mentioned before, I used to work a lot with migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. But. I know with my own eyes, that is not the case for them. I know in my own eyes that many of them are quite excluded from the system.
They were very limited access for them. And even for the Chinese immigrants community of second or third generations in Europe, many of them still has a fear of the financial systems. here. And their fear of financial system exclude them from getting access to it. And a lot of their needs were not met, such as, uh, currency exchange and also handling taxes. I've seen the consequences of this sort of financial exclusion.
And this is what, you know, brings me sort of to this topic and brings me also to my project, the Parallel Society project. Parallel Society project as a project is a storytelling game that kind of explores the financial inclusion as a topic by featuring the fate of the two characters and what I What's interesting in this project was the two characters, one as a migrant and one as a rural villager.
So usually in political discourses, migrants and local working class people, marginalized local populations are very often pitted against each other. I use the concept of parallel society is also a bit of a play in the world because parallel society in the German context is maybe in the whole European context is, uh, it's a term that is used to usually describe like self organization of like, uh, ethnic or religious minorities. And after it was coined.
There were a lot of like policy based on it, but there's also a lot of controversy around it. I am also not a very big fan of this term because of it puts emphasizes on the minorities themselves to bear the responsibility of integrating into a society where there aren't enough integration infrastructure.
So there were a lot of like discussion like academic critiques of it um that is used to describe this group of communities that were being cut off from very often access from the so called mainstream culture. And in those kinds of discourse, integration and assimilation are usually used interchangeably. Even though they mean completely different things. So this is a bit of my play with the word related to
this. Xiaozhi's insight into exclusion faced by marginalized communities and the concept of parallel societies offer a deeper insight. Dive into the complexities of financial inclusion. Similarly, Esther's approach to community based governance and self determination brings another layer to this conversation, highlighting how participatory practices can empower individuals and change the way they interact with financial systems.
Each village back creates their own constitution and govern themselves. So self governance. My practice always takes an African feminist and colonial approach. So it can be very easy to fall into an extractive practice where you say I'm the artist, I know what I'm doing. And so give me your existence and I'll present it. Um, and so taking a decolonial approach in this project was really about stepping back as an artist and listening.
So I knew that we had to exhibit something and we wanted to tell stories and to create an archive, but it was really a discipline to not decide on behalf of the communities what that would be. And so when we're reaching out to people in our communities, it was really tell us your stories. If you're inviting us into your homes, you're inviting us. into the practice you have created something that has been sustaining your community. And so that's how we went about it. But this method takes time.
And as I always mentioned, it takes trust because they have to trust you as well to invite you into their, their homes and to share how they do village banking. Cause it's also finance and people Sometimes I'm not the most comfortable talking about money, so that's how we we set out to do it. It actually took a lot more time to get the meetings because we wanted it to be really a safe space and a free open space for sharing.
Anster's work emphasizes the power of community driven stories and the importance of trust in building inclusive systems. As we shift from grassroots practices to the future of digital financial tools, we had a short time with the creators of the Interledger Protocol. In this section, Evan Schwarz will discuss how innovations like Interledger could revolutionize financial inclusion by creating a seamless, universal payment system for all.
When the internet was, was rolling out, it was not obvious.
How widespread it would become and how ubiquitous it would become and I think that's sort of the Potential which is both like very interesting and also to be honest a little bit scary with something like interledger where I think it has the potential to be everywhere in a sense, um, and the the idea of Making it such that there's like one universal payment Network or internetwork such that anyone can pay anyone for anything basically It would make it possible to include that in
a lot more places So stefano mentioned, uh the web and obviously like way more of society and life is being hooked up to the internet and The payment experience is kind of clunky still and so you that does push towards centralization with Services that can hold on to your credit card details and then charge you little amounts every every once in a while So with interledger You could have payment experiences that are much more seamless that are hooked up to a lot more places
so that that could be ranging from like paying for transit in different countries to consuming content or any any type of business transaction that you do instead of this discussion around like Oh, what payment network should we use for this? You just say here's the money That's a little bit of a vague answer, but I do think it's a little bit hard to predict how something like that would roll out, or like what kind of applications people would end up with.
Because I think a lot of the most exciting applications of the internet were things that probably would have been very difficult to foresee before.
Eva Schwarz perspective on a potential for a universal payment system like the interledger. Really opens up exciting possibilities for the future of digital transactions. But as he pointed out, the challenges are significant and it's going to take more than just a technical innovation to create the kind of impact we need. So what does this more equitable future look like and how do we build it?
That's where Dr. Mangle comes in, focusing not only on technology, but on the people in the community it serves.
So I have the same question. So the same question of like, what does This future of money look like what needs to get done. I want to be straightforward. Anything I come up with, I can't do it. Like there needs to be a team and my foreshadowing even more. I'm applying for a sabbatical to answer this question. My post was going to be and it's still going to be. It's just like the word might not be exactly what I say. It is going to be here.
But like what I'm looking for are these moonshot sort of skunk work project teams that we can focus on making an impact that is creative. It's innovative. Uh, and I teach those in class, like the yes, and the removing your perceptual blocks, your emotional blocks, your cultural blocks to being able to create these new ideas. I have a little bit of technical, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But realistically, like it's going to be a team.
The aspirational goal is I think a killer app in the space. I use the, it's not a sci fi quote here, but like, how do you eat an elephant? And the response is one bite at a time. I think you need one bite from a small group of people. Like, I think it's a small team.
That is doing or trying to do some amazing things and I through academia am Are in a privileged spot where the idea of a sabbatical of like you leave to make an impact And that's what i'm trying to figure out like I think I have issues and I think i've taught this before like with students like having these digital financial tools That are really not working to their benefit Or it's working for a select few or meaning geography wise or individuals of a certain demographic.
And I'm concerned about when the future of money is decided by those who control them, the money supply. I don't want to be like, this is where I think, I think it's going to go. These are just concerns that I have. And it's going to take Some people to really sacrifice time and that's sort of like what the sabbatical is for me like sacrifice time to figure this out.
I think there's been one consistent thread here it's like the idea of impact and I think that the killer app idea like finding I think we know what the problem is.
Dr. Mengele's vision for an equitable future underscores the power of collaboration and creative moonshot thinking, highlighting that it's going to take a team to truly make a difference. Building on an idea of innovation and meeting the world's needs, we now turn to Yoram, whose perspective on the future of fintechs challenges us to think beyond just technology. Yoram said, Emphasizes that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.
And he has a bold outlook on how infrastructure and performance will evolve in the coming years. So let's hear more about his vision for the next phase of fintech innovations needed to support it.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. And now we need to ask ourselves, okay, so it's important to predict. How do you predict you need to invent? Next question, how do you invent? And then that great inventor, Thomas Edison, he said, well, I look at what the world needs and then I proceed to invent. So he wasn't a great inventor so much. He was a great archaeologist of needs.
You know, he could find the needs and just serve those needs and, and you'll be an inventor in passing, I think. So what is the next 30 years of FinTech? I think we have to look at what the world needs. And then we need to see, you know, what are the goals to serve those needs? What's the methodology to hit those goals? And that's kind of the Tiger Beetle story. You know, I think the world is definitely not going to want slower buggy databases.
It's going to want them to be a thousand times faster already. We we're actually concerned that we're not giving enough performance because some sectors are already 10, 000 X. We've only designed for a thousand X. So it's kind of like the world is going to need faster infrastructure because you can trade that performance for cost efficiency.
It's going to be wanting to run multi cloud by default, like I'm talking to my area, but for FinTech, I think regulators are going to say they're already saying, you know, you can't only be running on one, one of three providers because that provider goes down and a third of the country goes down. So, so open source is going to be critical that we're not locked in and. Infrastructure becomes commodity. It has to be commodity and utility. The future is going to be faster, safer, better, I hope.
At least that's what I, you know, that's, that's, that's what we're all here for as a generation, isn't it? So, and then our kids will, will look back at us and say, you know, Oh, 30 years ago there was this database called Tiger Beetle. It's too slow.
As we wrap up, it's clear that the conversations we've had this year are just the beginning. From the possibilities of reimagining community driven solutions to leveraging technology for global digital financial inclusion, and innovating at the very core of our digital infrastructure. Each perspective has painted a picture of what the future could hold. It's not just about the tools or the systems, it's about the people behind them, the values driving them, and the impact they strive to create.
Thank you to all of our speakers for sharing their insights, and thank you to our audience for joining us on this journey. As we head into the holiday season, let's take this time to reflect on what we've learned, appreciate the connections we've made, and recharge for work ahead. Together, let's continue to dream, innovate, and build a more equitable and financially inclusive future.
To learn more about the Intellectual Foundation, visit our website where you can find all of the published episodes and more information on our guests, grant programs, and other resources. Wishing you all a joyful holiday season filled with peace, inspiration and meaningful moments. We look forward to seeing you at our next discussion in the near year. Until then, take care and stay inspired.