Arianne Ferrer

Head of External Affairs, Asia-Pacific

Tala

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As Tala’s Head of External Affairs, Asia-Pacific, Arianne helps stakeholders understand Tala’s commitment to increasing financial access, health, and autonomy among the global majority. She directs Tala's social impact-driven policies and programmes, like the Global Debt Collection Dignity Initiative (Debt with Dignity) and consumer literacy caravans, in Southeast Asia.

Arianne was a litigation and corporate special projects lawyer, with expertise in banking and finance, financial technology, white-collar crime and competition law. She studied law and economics at the University of the Philippines (B.S. Business Economics, J.D.) and the University of Chicago (LL.M.)

Speaking At

1:45–3:15pmTue 17 NovPublic-Private RoundtableRoundtable Room 4Open
Shaping Tomorrow's Innovation

Policy Meets Capital: Closing the SME Finance Gap

Public-Private RoundtableRoundtable Room 4Open
About this session
SMEs in developing economies face a financing gap of about US$5.7 trillion, and it is growing faster than the economies themselves. Supply alone will not close it. Policy, data and market infrastructure must develop alongside it.
This roundtable brings ministers responsible for SMEs together with leaders from payments, fintech, banking and development finance. It looks at three questions:
- Which cross-border payment and trade-finance rails would help SMEs sell abroad?
- How can governments crowd in private lending at scale?
- What role should the public sector play in enabling digital lending, including alternative data and AI credit scoring?
As a Singapore stop on the Road to Geneva, the discussion will produce priorities for the 2nd Global SME Ministerial Meeting in May 2027 and for the SME Trade Finance Facility.

Speakers

Arianne Ferrer

Speaking At

Policy Meets Capital: Closing the SME Finance Gap