At the same time, we continued strengthening and expanding financial education work, bringing together all national stakeholders around the Foundation and drawing on international best practices. More particularly, we worked with the ILO and AFI to develop educational packages, and organized several instructor-training sessions for various professional categories. In this same vein of association and cooperation, we are trying to bring together all stakeholders to reflect on the methods for implementing the Bali Fintech Agenda. In this regard, Bank Al-Maghrib co-organized, last March, a regional conference with the IMF and plans to hold a second one in 2021. Similarly, our institution held, last November, the Africa Blockchain Summit, meant to share experiences between African countries, stimulate innovation and encourage startups. We hope to take advantage of the latter’s innovations for our own benefit and for the benefit of our ecosystem. The selected  4  startups have indeed come up with promising solutions to strengthen financial inclusion. That being said, such digital revolution, as we all know, is not only about opportunities, but also about risks and challenges, namely in terms of cybercrime, money laundering and terrorist financing, and personal data protection, etc. This highlights, once again, the need for appropriate regulation. In the banking sector, we, as a central bank, are striving for more agile and appropriate regulation, while offering support to the new actors and ensuring their supervision. With respect to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, the recent MENA-FATF assessment highlighted some shortcomings among financial inclusion non-bank actors.

Anyone needing an umbrella when it’s raining has to show that he can get alternative one on demand. Loans from the IMF and others are our umbrella. In the third place, co-operation with the IMF is important not only because of the access to credit contingent on the progress of the programme. The Fund serves as a sort of validation agency for the economic policies of countries that find themselves in economic difficulties. Its stamp of approval is a precondition for obtaining credit not only from other countries, but also from foreign banks and investors. In many instances it is a premise for foreign investment in domestic industry. This view has been clearly expressed in interviews with numerous foreign bankers, who are prepared to take Iceland to the global credit market as soon as the uncertainty delaying the progress of the programme is eliminated. Many find the medicine prescribed by IMF bitter, and have requested a more palatable economic strategy without the Fund’s involvement. Of course, it would be desirable to use automatic fiscal stabilisers or discretionary fiscal policy to mitigate the economic cycle. Countercyclical fiscal policy, however, is a privilege reserved for countries whose credit rating has not been tarnished. Iceland does not enjoy this privilege any more than Greece, Latvia, and various other states. To toss away the IMF’s umbrella and set off empty-handed to meet with foreign creditors in an attempt to refinance the loans maturing in the next two years would be a fatal error.