Three of our founding digital finance associations share their experiences and successes to help guide and inspire others on their journey.

TOP TIPS – FOR DEVELOPING DIGITAL FINANCE ASSOCIATIONS

• Clear values and aims
  • Specific enough to inform what projects you get involved with and who you partner with
• Diversity in the team running the association
  • Access to the whole DFS ecosystem
  • Enough people to form working groups
• Consider project related remits (e.g. Director Gender Diversity, Director Membership) rather than generic board/exec roles to help have an action/implementation focus whilst still small in size
• Make sure you have a good value proposition for members. Examples include:
  • Seeing impact on the ground on how the association is influencing policy and practice
  • Able to attend webinars and events (capacity build)
  • Networking to be access industry experts (in-country and global)
  • Able to contribute themselves to a project – feel good factor and also get seen in the industry
  • Competitions – hackathons etc
  • Discounts – to services and providers (e.g. DFI courses)
  • Access to consultancy opportunities
  • Catalysing networking to start potential new business partnerships and collaboration (e.g. Fair to enable MFIs to meet fintechs in Mozambique for collaboration)
  • Mentoring young entrepreneurs / innovation hubs
  • Access to more niche experts, for example lawyers specialising in techs and start-ups
• Partner with diverse organisations in your country – central bank, regulators, development sector (e.g. FSD), fintechs, PSPs, banks etc
• Capture and publicise the impact you are having – helps with credibility, build profile, attract members, partners and funding
• Use interns to support the running of the association and social media/marketing – recent graduates can be affordable and gives them opportunity to build work experience/portfolios
• Speak at other organisations/association’s events – both in-country, across Alliance Members and others.
  • Remember to have a background with your logo and plug your association
  • Tag the event organisations in your social media posts and get them to tag you – this raises exposure
• Write articles and blog posts – share to own and association social media but also seek other avenues for publishing such as magazines and blogs
  • This also shows great thought leadership in the digital finance space
• Keep social media pages active, share relevant content and tag, comment and share as much as possible
• Get invited to sit on working groups, particularly those run by regulators – such as national financial inclusion strategy
• Put together concept notes or advisory papers and send to relevant organisations to try and start discussions and collaborations (e.g. Bangladesh have a digital credit paper)

Watch the webinar here: