Author: Brigit Helms Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 0821363611 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
"Beginning with key questions about clients of microfinance - Who are they? What financial services do they want? What is the impact of financial services on their lives? - the book examines all levels of the financial system. It shows what works, what does not work, and where more learning is needed. By focusing on promising models and practices, it offers a vision of how to achieve financial systems that will ultimately offer access for all."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Michael S. Barr Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0815708408 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
Broad-based and inclusive financial systems significantly raise growth, alleviate poverty, and expand economic opportunity. Households, small enterprises, and the rural poor often have difficulty obtaining financial services for a multitude of reasons, including transaction costs, perceived risk, inadequate infrastructure, and information barriers. Yet many financial institutions are now making profitable inroads into underserved markets through formal banking, investment in equities, venture capital, postal banks, and microfinance. Access to Finance addresses the challenges of making financial systems more inclusive, emulating successful ventures in new markets, and utilizing technologies and government policies to support the expansion of financial access. The contributors examine many dimensions of financial access, including: • Measuring financial access • Understanding the impact of expanded access • Examining alternative institutional models • Exploring new technologies and information infrastructure • Evaluating government policies toward outreach.
Author: United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Publisher: United Nations Publications ISBN: Category : Developing countries Languages : en Pages : 202
Book Description
In most developing countries, financial services are only available to a minority of the population. The majority have no savings accounts, do not receive credit from formal financial institutions and have no insurance policies. They seldom make or receive payments through financial institutions. The limited use of financial services in developing countries has become an international policy concern. The reason for concern about widespread financial "exclusion" in developing countries is straightforward: access to a well-functioning financial system can economically and socially empower individuals, in particular poor people, allowing them to better integrate into the economy of their countries, actively contribute to their development and protect themselves against economic shocks. The central question asked by this book is how to bring access to these fundamental services to all people in developing countries and thus accelerate their economic development and that of their countries. Inclusive finance - safe savings, appropriately designed loans for poor and low-income households and for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and appropriate insurance and payments services - can help people help themselves to increase incomes, acquire capital, manage risk and work their way out of poverty.
Author: Essam Yassin Mohammed Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351595121 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
More than one billion people still live below the poverty line – most of them in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Financial inclusion is a major issue, as more than three-quarters of the numbers of poor and disadvantaged women and men do not have access to financial products and services, such as bank accounts, affordable and suitable loans, and insurance. The key objective of this book is to provide practical case studies of financial inclusion, rather than focus on academic debates such as the ideological basis of promoting microfinance. Using the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals as an overall framing of the issues, it shows how poor and disadvantaged women and men can be bankable if the right facilitation for maximizing opportunities and addressing constraints are in place. Case studies confirm that achieving inclusive and sustainable access to financial products and services goes beyond simply enabling poor and disadvantaged women and men to have access to credit, or the ability to open a bank account. Examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America demonstrate encouraging progress in making microcredit accessible to millions of poor people. The foremost challenge, however, has been to ensure that they have access to, and usage intensity of, suitable and affordable financial products and services that meet the needs of their livelihoods as well as risks and mitigation strategies. This requires understanding that poor and disadvantaged women and men do not exist in isolation from complex and interdependent functions in the financial system, which includes a number of actors, diversified services, constraints (not just symptoms) and capacities and incentives. Overall, the book provides a rich source of examples of how building inclusive financial systems can empower the world's poor – by increasing income and employment opportunities, securing livelihoods and reducing poverty.
Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 1464812683 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.
Author: Joanna Ledgerwood Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 0821384317 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 302
Book Description
The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.
Author: World Bank Group Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 0821399853 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
The second issue in a new series, Global Financial Development Report 2014 takes a step back and re-examines financial inclusion from the perspective of new global datasets and new evidence. It builds on a critical mass of new research and operational work produced by World Bank Group staff as well as outside researchers and contributors.
Author: Mario B. Lamberte Publisher: Asian Development Bank ISBN: 9715616054 Category : Agricultural credit Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
V.2 on CD-ROM includes: Rural finance in Azerbaijan -- Rural finance in Kazakhstan -- Rural finance in Kyrgyz Republic -- Rural finance in Mongolia -- Rural finance in Tajikistan -- Rural finance in Uzbekistan.
Author: David Michael Gould Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 1464809682 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 292
Book Description
During the 1990s, Emerging Europe and Central Asia (ECA) opted for a model of rapid financial development focused on bank credit expansion often funded by foreign capital. This model helped boost the financial inclusion of firms and households, but was also accompanied by lower financial efficiency and increased vulnerability to banking crises. The need for financial sector reforms has become more urgent as stagnating income growth, particularly of middle- to lower-income earners, is leading to increased dissatisfaction with the status quo of low productivity growth and limited access to opportunities. This demand for change can be the impetus for rebalancing financial policies to support higher and more inclusive growth. A healthy and balanced financial sector is needed to support structural adjustment in the oil dependent economies of the eastern side ECA and greater innovation in the countries of the western part of ECA. This report argues that financial development must reach beyond increasing access to credit. ECA countries should strive to build balanced financial systems integrating both bank and non-bank markets, enabling prudent financial inclusion. Most importantly, ECA falls significantly behind other world regions in the use of saving products. Striking the right balance across all dimensions of financial development (stability, efficiency, inclusion, and overall depth) is crucial for achieving and sustaining inclusive growth.
Author: Brigit Helms
Author: Michael S. Barr
Author: United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Author: Brigit Helms
Author: Essam Yassin Mohammed
Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt
Author: Joanna Ledgerwood
Author: World Bank Group
Author: Mario B. Lamberte
Author: David Michael Gould