The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group on Digital Financial Services has published the first of a series of thematic reports on Digital Financial Services, or DFS.

The DFS Focus Group is looking at helping local policy and decision makers to accelerate their work on financial inclusion by providing practical tools, guidelines and recommendations on issues that are currently preventing the DFS market to develop organically.

This represents the first step in developing an international roadmap of best practice guidelines for regulators, operators and providers in the telecom and financial services sectors and serving the unbanked in a sustainable manner.

Specifically focused around two of the four working groups, DFS Ecosystem and Consumer Experience and Protection, the four background documents were endorsed at the Focus Group’s recent meeting in Washington DC.

ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao said: “What makes this Focus Group different is its holistic approach. After more than a year of intensive work, experts are completing some preliminary analysis and have started to develop a robust and relevant framework together with very pragmatic recommendations that will hopefully deliver real change and opportunity.”

Sacha Polverini, Chairman of the Focus Group and Senior Programme Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) programme, said: “Our initial observations provide two things: firstly, the publication of the Digital Financial Services Ecosystem report provides an agreed understanding between all relevant parties; secondly, our analysis of key elements of the process, such as issues around merchant acceptance and the role that national identity schemes can play, has helped provide a better understanding of how we can facilitate greater access to DFS in emerging markets. We made some surprising findings.”

Carol Coye Benson, Managing Partner at Glenbrook Partners and Working Group Co-Chair for DFS Ecosystem, added: “The key challenge in reaching digital liquidity is to balance both sides of the equation.

To get real value it’s important to drive money into the system and to keep it in. The way to do that is to enable bulk (G2P) payments into transaction accounts and simultaneously enable merchant electronic payment acceptance, so that consumers have a place to spend their e-Money.”

The region’s most influential ICT leaders recently gathered in Nairobi for the third annual installment of International Data Corporation’s East Africa CIO Summit.

With more than 100 CIOs, technology decision makers, and government advisors in attendance, the event examined the latest trends shaping tech adoption across the region and stressed the need for CIOs to take on a leadership position in their organisations’ digital strategies.

In the buildup to the highly regarded event, a senior delegation from IDC met with Joseph Mucheru, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Information, Communications, and Technology, to discuss the current state of digital literacy in Kenya and share insights into the growth and development of ICT across the wider region.

Following these discussions, the East Africa CIO Summit was officially inaugurated with a speech from Matunda Nyanchama, a Senior Advisor to Kenya’s ICT Authority and Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology.

Running under the theme of ‘Leading Your Organisation’s Digital Transformation’, the Summit saw a series of expert speakers explain how a hugely disruptive digital revolution is sweeping across East Africa.

Together, they stressed the need for the region’s end-user community to infuse a culture of innovation, integration, and incorporation into the very fabric of their organisations in order to not just survive but thrive in the new digital economy.

“For those of us responsible for enterprise technology, the emergence of this digital revolution brings with it challenges and opportunities in equal measure,” said Jyoti Lalchandani IDC’s Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.

“Successful leaders are judged by their ability to effect change, and in this new digital world, change will be driven by a leader’s ability to manage the three connected disciplines of innovation, integration, and incorporation. These three disciplines underpin IDC’s new ‘Leading in 3D’ model for business success and represent the critical competencies required to drive true digital transformation across the entire scale and breadth of the modern enterprise.”

Mark Walker, IDC’s associate vice president for Sub-Saharan Africa, broadened the discussion by stressing the need for greater collaboration between CIOs and their finance counterparts in order to smooth the journey to a state of true digital transformation.

“As business transformation strategists and guardians of the balance sheet, CFOs have long been champions of new ICT technologies that open up new market opportunities, minimise operational expenditure, and facilitate improved risk mitigation practices,” said Walker.

“As such, they should be seen as important allies in the quest for digital transformation, particularly at a time when the demand to facilitate greater levels of innovation through technology investment must be balanced against the growing need to rationalize costs.”

The event’s agenda built on this theme, with respected industry thought leaders examining the changing role of the CIO and offering advice to the assembled ICT leaders on taking a leadership position within their organisation’s digital transformation journeys, enabling comprehensive connected security, and driving innovation through the use of converged infrastructure.

They also detailed strategies for securing enterprise data through the use of hosting and co-location services, and helped paint a clearer picture of the foundations that must be in place to ensure a smooth transition to the 3rd Platform.

Facebook has joined the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) as an industry member.

“At Facebook, we look forward to working with other CTO members in promoting technology as a useful tool for greater economic and social inclusion,” said Simon Milner, Facebook’s Policy Director for EMEA. “We are also looking forward to further collaboration with the CTO on privacy and safety issues.”

In recent years, Facebook has participated in CTO events and high-level training seminars.

“The CTO is pleased to welcome Facebook as member, and we are confident that more regular engagement with the company will add value to the entire membership of the CTO,” said Lasantha De Alwis, ICT Development Director at the CTO.

The CTO offers practical support in the form of professional training, technical support and consultancy, research and advisory services as well as facilitating partnerships, through a four-tier membership structure.

About the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) is the oldest and largest Commonwealth intergovernmental organisation in the field of information and communication technologies. Although our history can be traced back to 1901 with the establishment of the Pacific Cable Board, the organisation has only existed in its present form as an intergovernmental treaty organisation since 1967. With a diverse membership spanning developed and least developed countries, small island developing states, and more recently also the private sector and civil society, the CTO aims to become a trusted partner for sustainable development for all through ICTs.

GSA, the (Global mobile Suppliers Association) confirms that the number of commercially launched LTE networks has passed the 500 milestone, which was achieved during May 2016.

According to its latest research, 503 operators have commercially launched LTE networks in 167 countries.

LTE is the fastest developing mobile communications system technology ever. The historic milestone of 500 commercially launched LTE networks was reached in 77 months from first service launch, almost 5 years less than the time taken by 3G/WCDMA systems, and 6 months faster than HSPA systems.

GSA forecasts there will be at least 550 commercially launched LTE networks by end 2016.

Around 25% of LTE operators have launched LTE-Advanced systems.

Alan Hadden, VP of Research, GSA said: “Several LTE operators are now introducing LTE-Advanced Pro technologies, sometimes referred to as 4.5G, which is established as a major industry trend in 2016.

LTE-Advanced Pro systems can support peak downlink speeds up to 1 Gbps and beyond.”

The number of LTE and LTE-Advanced subscriptions reached 1.068 billion worldwide by end 2015. LTE continues to grow faster than any other mobile communications system technology and is already responsible for 1 in 7 mobile subscriptions worldwide. Data for Q1 2016 LTE subscriptions will be published by GSA in the next few days.

Women are more likely than men to use the internet on their mobile phones according to a new report released by UKOM, the body responsible for online audience measurement, based on comScore cross platform online data.

Half (49%) of all women’s internet time in the UK is spent on smartphones – rising to 59% among women aged 18-24.

In comparison, just 39% of men’s online time is on smartphones. For men, PCs/laptops remain the dominant device for going online, accounting for 48% of their internet time, compared to only 35% among women.

Consequently, women account for the majority (52%) of all UK smartphone internet time but just 39% of PC/laptop internet time.

“The old cliché that women spend more time on the phone than men turns out to also ring true for internet usage,” says UKOM’s Director of Insight, Julie Forey. “Understanding how consumers’ online behaviour differs by platform can help agencies and advertisers plan campaigns more effectively, such as knowing men don’t dominate mobile time as they do on computers.

“This is exactly what BT did in the 1980s after identifying women were actually the heaviest users of its landline service, being more disposed to chat with friends and family. They used this insight to create their hugely successful ‘It’s good to talk’ campaign to encourage those who didn’t use the phone as much – namely men – to use it more to connect with people and improve relationships.”

Sectors where women’s smartphone time most outweighs men’s

The data, from comScore’s multi-platform measurement system*, also reveals that women’s smartphone time most outweighs men’s on social media, retail and games website/apps.

In April 2016, women in the UK spent 4.8 billion more social media minutes than men on their smartphones – the equivalent of nearly 5 ½ hours more per woman smartphone internet user. Women spent 1.5 billion more retail minutes on phones than men (1 hour 43 minutes more per person) and 1.4 billion more on games (1 hour 38 minutes more per person).

“Women, with their more natural desire to connect with friends and family, as well as their predilection for shopping, play a much bigger role in driving internet use on smartphones,” says Forey.

“Phone conversations as a method for sharing information and catching up are increasingly being usurped by smartphone apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and the like. Men still use these services on their phones, but just not to the same extent.”

A new study from Juniper Research has found that consumer spend on digital content will reach $180 billion next year, up by nearly 30% on last year’s figure of just under $140 billion.

The research said that revenue growth would primarily be driven by continued migration to streamed video services, with broadcasters and telco operators increasingly deploying their own on-demand and IPTV offerings to compete with OTT (Over the Top) players.

According to the report, telcos had also recognised the pressing need to invest in attractive, original content to compete with the award-winning shows developed by Netflix and Amazon. It cited the example of Spain’s Telefonica, which is to produce 8 to 10 TV series per year from 2017, while both BT and AT&T have indicated that they might commission original drama or entertainment in the near future.

Meanwhile, several telcos have partnered with leading OTTs to offer consumers bundled ‘zero-rated’ content that does not impact on monthly data allowances.

The research said that more operators might consider enhancing the relationship through the acquisition of a strategic stake in content providers, as with TeliaSonera’s investment in Spotify. The research also highlighted Twitter’s recent acquisition of the online rights for NFL as the first move by an OTT player into the sporting arena, arguing that other players could follow suit.

Although, according to research author, Dr Windsor Holden, “the spiralling cost of most premium sporting rights means that bidders for exclusive live rights for must now pay several hundred million dollars per season. With most streamed audiences well under a million, this is likely to deter online-only players in the short and medium term.”