Bangkok (People’s Daily) – Co-hosted by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) and Bank of Thailand (BOT), the two-day conference themed “Innovative Finance for Future Growth” ended on Tuesday.

The conference was attended by academics, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs and served as a platform for them to discuss academic findings and exchange experiences. The conference also helped promote the application of innovative financial technologies in policy-making to facilitate financial inclusion and financial and economic development.

The conference believes that better access to financial services benefits families and the development of small businesses by providing them more investment opportunities to boost economic development.

Naoyuki Yoshino, dean of ADBI, said that financial systems have been expanding in Asian countries, offering more services for savings, credit, investment, insurance, and pension payments. However, much remains to be done to provide services of high quality at low cost to people and small businesses in urban and rural areas and underprivileged regions where banks and other financial institutions are less likely to see profit.

The conference emphasized that the development of information and communications technologies (ICTs) helps boost financial inclusion, but digital finance also requires customer literacy and an understanding of a financial crisis. Consumers need to be fully informed of the costs and risks of the financial products being offered.

The spread of digital finance is also having an impact on the traditional commercial and retail banks. They are finding that digital finance is disrupting their daily lending and borrowing business, and they need to find ways to provide electronic services and to meet their customers’ growing demands.

The conference aims to promote discussions on how to deepen financial inclusion through innovative financial technology, and serves as a pivot in passing useful experience and lessons from other economies in applying financial innovation to the promotion of financial inclusion and economic development.

The conference is also one in a series of high-level events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the BOT.