A new report from World Bank-based microfinance group CGAP and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) shows that more than 170 million poor people worldwide receive regular payments from their governments, but the potential to use these payments to increase financial inclusion is largely untapped.

This press release highlights a new $26 million technology programme, co-financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by CGAP, to look at how technology can be used to bring access to financial services to poor people in rural areas. Pilot programmes are underway in Colombia, Kenya, Maldives, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa.

This blog entry highlights the difficulty of using account-based delivery systems in countries where access to financial infrastructure is limited. It elaborates with the example of a Cape Town gardener who is struggling to access his right to unemployment insurance payouts based on him not having a bank account into which to receive the payments.

DFID announces a new initiative to promote "branchless banking" amongst the world's poor.

FAST (Facilitating Access to financial Services through Technology) is a new initiative to support the use of technology and innovation to bring financial services to millions of "un-served" people across the globe. FAST will:

A conference on banking technology begins in Nairobi on Tuesday morning as banks aggressively move into technology to improve their service delivery. Dubbed the Banking and Payment Technologies East Africa, 2009, the conference, organised by Aitec Africa, will bring together banking industry players and technology service providers with the focus on recent innovation in banking and payment systems in the region.