From Hype to Impact: What Stablecoins Mean for Financial Inclusion (Part 1)

Sonia Arenaza is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist Consultant at CGAP, where she advises the Policy and Investment teams. She has extensive experience in strategy, product management, and policy development across digital finance, blockchain, digital assets, and AI-powered innovations, working across sectors with big tech firms, global financial institutions, startups, venture investors, government agencies, and international organizations. 

Prior to joining CGAP, Sonia worked at Bank of New York Mellon, Meta, and United Nations agencies, including the Better Than Cash Alliance, the International Telecommunication Union, and the Internet Governance Forum, as well as Accion International. She has engaged closely with regulators, policymakers, and private sector leaders to advance financial innovation and inclusion. In addition to her work with CGAP, Sonia advises women-led ventures and leads Inclusive Innovations, a boutique advisory firm. 

She holds a Chief Product Officer certificate from MIT and a master’s degree from Syracuse University and a computer science degree from the National Engineering University in Peru.

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.

Haocong is a lead financial sector specialist and pillar lead of CGAP’s policy and investment team. 

Prior to joining CGAP, she spent almost 20 years at the World Bank (WB). She was a senior financial sector specialist in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) team in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank from 2021 to 2024. She led/co-led the financial sector work programs for Azerbaijan and Georgia, and coordinates FCI’s work programs across the South Caucasus. Before that, she worked in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the WB, led the financial sector work program in Lebanon from 2019 to 2021 including during the onset and early stages of the financial crisis, leading the policy dialogue with the government and Banque du Liban. She also worked on various financial sector issues in several other countries in the region (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, and West Bank and Gaza). Prior to joining the regional team in 2017, she worked in the global team responsible for financial stability and integrity issues within the FCI Global Practice of the WB. She helped coordinate the WB engagement with the Financial Stability Board on financial regulatory reforms, leveraging WB’s global engagements with various standard-setting bodies. She also worked extensively on financial sector issues in China from 2009 to 2017. She participated in several Financial Sector Assessment Programs, including as WB deputy mission chief for the China FSAP Update 2017 and Kuwait FSAP Update 2018, and as WB mission chief for the Georgia FSAP Update 2021. Her work has covered a range of topics, including financial regulatory reforms, state-owned financial institutions, crisis management, supervisory governance and structure, SME finance, digital financial services, climate and green agenda, and capital market development, etc. During 2005-2008, Haocong worked in the International Finance Team of the WB’s Economic Prospects Group and was a member of the core team on a World Bank flagship publication Global Development Finance.

Haocong received a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Peking University (China) and an M.Phil. Degree in Economics from the George Washington University. She is a CFA charterholder.