The article was written by Fabrice Gatwabuyege and Michaella Allen. The original article was published on the Cenfri website here.

Learnings from the Remittance Access Initiative (RAI) in partnership with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances

Cenfri, in partnership with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances recently shared insights at several of IFAD’s National Remittance Stakeholder Network (NRSN) meetings. These meetings were established by the Platform for Remittances, Investment and Migrants entrepreneurship in Africa (PRIME Africa) and offer collaborative spaces for the members to exchange practices that promote innovative business models and products, showcase public-private partnerships and address new trends and market opportunities. Each meeting gathers key stakeholders in the remittance industry to facilitate dialogue among parties and share information, challenges, opportunities, and practices.

At the Gambia and Ghana NRSN events, Cenfri shared our two-pronged approach to reduce remittance access barriers for low-income, rural households and women by:

• Evaluating potential for remittance access innovation within the existing national legislative and regulatory frameworks and
• Providing technical assistance to remittance service providers.

By working with remittance services providers, the RAI works to improve know-you-customer (KYC) and customer-due-diligence (CDD) processes through a number of interventions such as: strengthening risk assessment frameworks, and improving the reach of RSPs for inclusive remittance ecosystems.