Queen Máxima sat down for an interview with CNBC while at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to talk about financial inclusion.
The Queen of the Netherlands attends the World Economic Forum annually in her role as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, and was asked by reporter Tania Bryer about the progress financial inclusion has made since the 2022 Forum.
“We’ve had amazing progress,” Queen Máxima said, relaying that the world data indicates that 76% of the world’s population has access to financial services. In 2011, that number was at 50%.
“Financial inclusion is a means to an end, not an end in itself, so it is about actually having financial health… It basically means being able to deal with your funds on a day-to-day basis,” the Queen said, adding that resiliency, being able to create long-term goals, and not having financial stress are also important tenants to financial health.
Her Majesty said she was optimistic about the collaborations and discussions she’d seen at Davos this year between private and public sector organisations—and private sectors organisations with each other—in regards to financial inclusion.
Queen Máxima said that people need greater access to digital identification so that they can create digital profiles; and that the pandemic has shown that a lot of money had to be moved by mobile means.
Bryer also asked how Queen Máxima became interested in financial issues and what led her to working with the industry. The Dutch Queen said that her early years in Argentina, a country with a high inflation cost, inspired her because she saw the desperation of people trying to make sense of their financial situations.
“I saw how people were falling off,” she said. She added that her decision to study finance and economics was decided at the age of 14, and joked that she thought she might’ve been a Minister of Finance as an adult, laughing at where she actually ended up.
Queen Máxima also spoke of how the cost-of-living crisis is worrying her and the work the Dutch government is doing to support its citizens through it. “It’s heartbreaking to see a lot of families have a lot of troubles.”
“I think if we work together, we can really move mountains, and we’ve actually seen it. We’re getting to 80% of the population financially included,” she added.
Queen Máxima’s full interview can be viewed here.
Source : From the Web