Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 14

14

Emerging Technology
for Emerging
Economies
From what I've seen, I believe that the
digital divide is getting bigger, not smaller. I
hear people say that the Internet of Things
is going to fix everything. And I say, "Well,
what about Africa? You can't support the
Internet of Things on a 2G network."
The World Bank has a huge responsibility,
and historically we haven't been good
about including technology in our solutions.
One of the things I try to do is make
sure technology is always a part of the
conversation.
I'm fascinated by blockchain, for example.
The way that technology is able to prove
a chain of custody and eliminate the
middleman in transactions could be a game
changer for our financial advisory groups.
That's one technology the Bank is beginning
to examine, although we haven't made any
investments yet.

TO INNOVATE,
FIRST YOU MUST
UNDERSTAND

T

oday, the IT organization actually
understands what it takes for the bank to
operate. They see what it takes for a task
team leader in Ulan Bator to do his or her job,
and they're beginning to ask themselves how
they might do things differently.
There is an operations portal, for example,
that a task team leader must use to produce
a country project review every six months.
The report used to have 800 fields, and task
leaders had to toggle back and forth between
our ERP system and the portal to enter the
information.
Because our teams had gotten to know the
business process and what the task team
leaders were trying to accomplish, they knew
that many of those 800 fields weren't needed.
They suggested removing 500 of them and
created a much more efficient workflow for the
task team leaders. It's been a massive success.
We made similar changes to many standardized
reports. Those kinds of things couldn't have
happened had the technology teams remained
the technology teams, and the business teams
remained the business teams.

DIGITAL STARTS
WITH DATA

W

hen I arrived, the World Bank did
not have much in the way of data
governance. I suggested that we
create a data council and agree on the terms
we were using to define things so that we might
make better use of the data we were collecting.
And as we started to think about how we
might use digital technology to drive our
mission, we realized that the same problem we



Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services

Contents
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - Cover1
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - Cover2
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 1
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - Contents
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 3
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 4
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 5
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 6
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 7
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 8
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 9
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 10
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 11
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 12
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 13
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 14
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 15
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 16
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 17
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 18
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 19
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 20
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 21
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 22
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 23
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 24
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 25
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 26
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 27
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 28
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 29
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 30
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 31
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 32
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 33
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 34
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 35
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - 36
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - Cover3
Straight Talk Special Issue: Financial Services - Cover4
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https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue7
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https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue5
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue4
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue3
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue2
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/issue1
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