From Hype to Impact: What Stablecoins Mean for Financial Inclusion (Part 1)
Webinar
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Join us on December 11 for a webinar on the role of stablecoins in advancing financial inclusion with a specific focus on cross-border remittances. The objective of the webinar is to help the financial inclusion community navigate the rapidly developing space of stablecoins, understand their impact on financial inclusion, and spotlight key developments to follow in coming months.
This webinar will provide an introduction into stablecoins, stablecoin-based use cases and their regulatory treatment. We will dive deeper into the potential of stablecoin-based international remittances to lower the cost of cross-border payments for low-income customers.
[Note: This webinar is the first part in the two-part series focused on stablecoins. In the second part held in January, we will discuss with external experts the opportunities and risks presented by stablecoins to cross-border payments and potential pathways to scale.]
Speakers
Sonia Arenaza is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, where she supports the Policy and Investment teams on digital finance with a focus on tokenization, blockchain, digital assets, and AI-powered innovations.
With over 20 years of experience at Meta, Bank of New York Mellon, Accion International, IDB, and UN agencies including the Better Than Cash Alliance and the International Telecommunication Union, she has worked with regulators, policymakers, and financial institutions on stablecoin frameworks, tokenized assets, and digital payments. Beyond CGAP, Sonia mentors women-led ventures and leads Inclusive Innovations, a boutique advisory firm.
She holds an MIT Chief Product Officer certificate, a master’s degree from Syracuse University, and a computer science degree from Peru’s National Engineering University.
Mehmet Kerse works with CGAP’s policy team on the regulation and supervision of digital finance and digital payments. His recent work focuses on fintech, digital currencies, tokenization, digital banking, embedded finance, and artificial intelligence in financial services. With over 15 years of experience in financial regulation and supervision, financial inclusion, and consumer protection, Mehmet has collaborated with numerous central banks and financial regulators, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe and Arab countries. He began his career as a bank supervisor in the Banking Regulation and Supervision Authority of Turkey and later worked on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) projects for the World Bank. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner.
He also works with other international organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). Mehmet holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Turkey's Bilkent University.
Ivo Jeník currently leads CGAP’s project on regulatory architecture at the frontier, including work on tokenization in finance, competition, and open finance supervision. He also leads CGAP’s work related to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures, including collaboration with the Financial Action Task Force. Previously he led work on regulatory innovation (open finance, regulatory sandboxes, crowdfunding), capacity building for policy makers (regulation and supervision of digital financial services), and emerging business models in banking across continents.
His professional experience spans across both the private and public sectors. Before joining CGAP, he worked in the Responsible Financial Access team at the World Bank, where he specialized in financial consumer protection and alternative dispute resolution. His professional experience spans across both the private and public sector, including serving as a compliance officer at an investment company and as Head of the Collective Investment Department at the Czech Financial Ombudsman.
Ivo has a Master’s degree in Law from Columbia Law School in New York and a Master’s degree in Law from Charles University in Prague.
Moderator
Haocong Ren is the Lead for Policy and Investment at CGAP, overseeing its research program on financial regulatory policies, as well as catalytic financing and impact measurement and management, to promote financial inclusion. Prior to joining CGAP, she worked for the World Bank (WB) for almost two decades. She led financial sector work programs in various countries in the Europe and Central Asia Region and the Middle East and North Africa Region during 2017-2024. Prior to joining the regional team, she worked in the global team responsible for financial stability and integrity issues.
She helped coordinate the WB engagement with the Financial Stability Board on financial regulatory reforms, led and participated in the Financial Sector Assessment Program for several countries, and worked extensively on financial sector issues in China from 2009 to 2017. Earlier in her career at the WB, she worked in the Economic Prospects Group and was a member of the drafting team for a WB flagship publication, Global Development Finance.