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.

The question of money, how to provide it, and how to acquire it where needed is axiomatic to development. The realities of global poverty and the inequalities between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ are clear and well documented, and the gaps between world’s richest and the world’s poorest are ever-increasing. But, even though funding development is assumed to be key, the relationship between finance and development is contested and complex. This book explores the variety of relationships between finance and development, offering a broad and critical understanding of these connections and perspectives. It breaks finance down into its various aspects, with separate chapters on aid, debt, equity, microfinance and remittances. Throughout the text, finance is presented as a double-edged sword: while it is a vital tool towards poverty reduction, helping to fund development, more critical approaches remind us of the ways in which finance can hinder development. It contains a range of case studies throughout to illustrate finance in practice, including, UK aid to India, debt in Zambia, Apple’s investment in China, microfinance in Mexico, government bond issues in Chile, and financial crisis in East Asia. The text develops and explores a number of themes throughout, such as the relationship between public and private sources of finance and debates about direct funding versus the allocation of credit through commercial financial markets. The book also explores finance and development interactions at various levels, from the global structure of finance through to local and everyday practices. Global Finance and Development offers a critical understanding of the nature of finance and development. This book encourages the reader to see financial processes as embedded within the broader structure of social relationships. Finance is defined and demonstrated to be money and credit, but also, crucially, the social relationships and institutions that enable the creation and distribution of credit and the consequences thereof. This valuable text is essential reading for all those concerned with poverty, inequality and development.

Over a decade has passed since the collapse of the U.S. investment bank, Lehman Brothers, marked the onset of the largest global economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis revealed major shortcomings in market discipline, regulation and supervision, and reopened important policy debates on financial regulation. Since the onset of the crisis, emphasis has been placed on better regulation of banking systems and on enhancing the tools available to supervisory agencies to oversee banks and intervene speedily in case of distress. Drawing on ten years of data and analysis, Global Financial Development Report 2019/2020 provides evidence on the regulatory remedies adopted to prevent future financial troubles, and sheds light on important policy concerns. To what extent are regulatory reforms designed with high-income countries in mind appropriate for developing countries? What has been the impact of reforms on market discipline and bank capital? How should countries balance the political and social demands for a safety net for users of the financial system with potentially severe moral hazard consequences? Are higher capital requirements damaging to the flow of credit? How should capital regulation be designed to improve stability and access? The report provides a synthesis of what we know, as well as areas where more evidence is still needed. Global Financial Development Report 2019/2020 is the fifth in a World Bank series. The accompanying website tracks financial systems in more than 200 economies before, during, and after the global financial crisis (http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/gfdr) and provides information on how banking systems are regulated and supervised around the world (http://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/BRSS).

This book traces the roots of global financial integration in the first “modern” era of globalisation from 1880 to 1913 and can serve as a valuable tool to current-day policy dilemmas by using historical data to see which policies in the past led to enhanced international financing for development.

Southern-Led Development Finance examines some of the innovative new south-south financial arrangements and institutions that have emerged in recent years, as countries from the Global South seek to transform their economies and to shield themselves from global economic turbulence. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, it was clear to many that the global economy needed a reset and a massive increase in public investment. In the last decade southern-owned development banks, infrastructure funds, foreign exchange reserve funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have doubled the amount of long-term finance available to developing countries. Now, as the world considers what a post-Covid-19 future will look like, it is clear that Southern-led institutions will do much of the heavy lifting. This book brings together insights from theory and practice, incorporating the voices of bankers, policymakers and practitioners alongside international academics. It covers the most significant new initiatives stemming from Asia, tried and tested examples in Latin America and in Africa, and the contribution of advanced economies. Whilst the book highlights the potential for Southern-led initiatives to change the global financial landscape profoundly, it also shows their varied impacts and concludes that more is needed for development than just the technical availability of funds. As governments and businesses become frustrated by the traditional North-dominated mechanisms and international financial system, this book argues that southern-led development finance will play an important role in the search for more inclusive, equitable and sustainable patterns of investment, trade and growth in the post-Covid landscape. It will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers, researchers and students working on development and finance everywhere.

This new annual publication from the World Bank Group provides an overview and assessment of financial sector development around the world, with particular attention on medium- and low-income countries.