The United Nations Capital Development Fund will tomorrow host the first edition of the Digital Coffee Sessions bringing together digital financial services (DFS) professionals in Zambia.

This initiative aims to highlight and analyze the challenges impeding the advancement of the digital financial services ecosystem in Zambia as well as potential solutions that could help address these challenges.

“Through our work, and in collaboration with other stakeholders in the DFS ecosystem, UNCDF seeks to build the DFS capacity of local professionals to ensure that knowledge on best practices are disseminated properly and that these professionals have access to the right tools needed to operationalize their learning to further enhance the growth of digital financial inclusion in Zambia” says Zerubabel Kwebiiha, DFS Expert, UNCDF Zambia.

Mr. Kwebiiha tells Money FM News that in less than five years, digital financial services in Zambia has undergone a dramatic transformation.

He says the market has moved from having two percent of adults with active digital financial services accounts and two thousand seven hundred and thirty agents nationwide in 2014 to having 24% of adults with active digital financial services accounts and 22,946 agents in 2017.

“To meet the growing demand for digital financial services, there is a need for more trained professionals in Zambia with the skills and knowledge required to build and enhance the digital financial services ecosystem in the country, as well as other digital ecosystems that are emerging,” he said.