Embracing Electronic Money with the Central Bank of Ecuador

Between the 10th and 15th October, our Latam Team was in Ecuador where many things happened.

Quito’s Chapter is taking form and is preparing to host its first meeting. Ma. Luisa Martínez, our Account Manager for Latin America, worked on this throughout the week with Jorge Moncayo, Central Bank of Ecuador’s Financial Inclusion Director and Chairman of Quito’s Chapter.

They started to set the objectives and mission of the Chapter itself and also invited some potential members.

This Chapter not only will develop and discuss about our platform, but it will be a Social Innovation and Technology Hub, where fintechs, developers, innovators, Academia, and subject matter experts can have a seat at the table to discuss, share experiences, work on solutions, and create papers and case studies about Financial Inclusion, Social Innovation and Technology.

Our Strategic Initiatives Director for Latin America, Javier Borkenztain, was a speaker at the International Seminar “Central Bank challenges in the XXI century” hosted and organized by the Central Bank of Ecuador.

Throughout the seminar, we had the opportunity to speak and learn from experiences and different points of view regarding electronic money, the Central Bank’s influence and technology from the participants of the event. Michael Kumhof of the Bank of England, Ben Dyson from Positive Money, Paulina Tcherneva from Levy Institute, and Enrique Marshall from Central Bank of Chile were some of the many participants in attendance.

One of the highlights was to speak with Diego Martínez, Central Bank of Ecuador’s General Manager and Rodrigo Landeta, Deputy Manager, about Electronic Money and their firsthand insights and objectives of their project.

On Thursday Javier spoke at the Seminar, with 200 attendees listening to him. He talked about Electronic Money as a exponential technology and how the Central Banks and society can prepare and embrace it.

We ended this amazing week with a dinner at the top of a hill with all the speakers and authorities.