The advent of technology solutions to data collection — or “RegTech” — has made it possible for supervisors to collect huge amounts of data from digital financial services (DFS) providers at a more granular level than ever before. The shift toward granular data can help regulators do a better job of supervising DFS.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), in July 2016, developed regulations on necessitating Biometric Verification for Over the Counter (OTC) money transfers (MT's) in Pakistan. These regulations, published as part of the updated branchless banking regulations of July 2016, are intended to enhance compliance to Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements and the Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Combating Financing of Terrorism (CFT) guidelines issued by the SBP.

Financial Technology firms, referred to as ‘FinTechs’ are revolutionizing the financial industry all over the world.

GSMA’s recent report titled ‘The Mobile Economy’ for 2017 has undertaken a comprehensive scan of the global telecommunications landscape. Given the direct impact of telecommunications on digital financial services (DFS), increase in mobile subscribers presents a growing opportunity for increasing the footprint of DFS.