Study covers CIRDAP member countries.

World Bank Technical Paper No. 295. The progress made by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in privatizing state-owned enterprises has created millions of new shareholders. But for the citizenry to buy and sell shares, these countries must develop stock markets and related institutions such as brokerages, clearing and settling organizations, and regulatory agencies. This paper examines the role of capital markets in the new market economies of Central and Eastern Europe and to what extent governments in the region should encourage the development of such markets. The authors address questions of whether the capital markets will serve merely as a forum for trading stocks or become a source of new equity capital to help restructure the enterprises of the region and whether governments should take a hands-off approach by letting the necessary institutions develop as they are needed or should actively create stock exchanges and establish the overall legal and regulatory framework.

Although microcredit programmes have long been considered efficient development tools, many forms of debt-induced distress have emerged in their wake. This has brought to light the problem of over-indebtedness, a topic which has been previously underexplored in the literature. This new book, from a group of leading scholars, explores the manifestations, scale, and economic and social implications of household over-indebtedness in areas conventionally considered as financially excluded. The book approaches debt not only as a financial transaction, but also as a form of social bond, and offers a socioeconomic analysis of over-indebtedness. The volume puts forward a broad definition of over-indebtedness, highlighting its situational and semantic complexity and diversity. It provides a close analysis of local conceptions of debt and over-indebtedness, highlighting frameworks of calculation and the constant renegotiation of their boundaries. On top of this, it looks far beyond microcredit to examine all the financial practices that individuals juggle. The volume argues that over-indebtedness has more to do with social inequalities than financial illiteracy, and should therefore be understood in the light of global trends of financialization. It also reveals the ambiguity of "financial inclusion" policies, and in many respects questions the actions of new credit providers. This book will be valuable reading for students, researchers and policy makers interested in microfinance and development issues.

Document from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, , course: ECONOMICS, language: English, abstract: The main objective of the study is to identify the borrower characteristics that discriminate them into defaulters and non- defaulters and examine the determinants of loan repayment and their credit worthiness in Microfinance institutions in Vavuniya district in Sri Lanka. In line with above general objective, this study has the following specific objectives: To identify the borrower characters those classify them into defaulters and non-defaulters in the study area. To evaluate the impact of major demographic characters such as age, gender, levels of education, civil status and family members of the borrowers that impact on their repayment performance and credit worthiness. To investigate how the farming characters like income, farm size, ownership of land, farming experience and availability of non-farm income as well as farmers' attributes such as purposes of loan, crop failure, weather conditions and knowledge about loans affect loan repayment and discriminate the borrowers into two groups in the study area. Financial institutions and banks have major role in financial sector as well as rural sector of an economy in terms of providing loans to the rural community in developing countries like Sri Lanka. The borrowers especially, farmers are able to get the loans from the microfinance institutions to improve their living standard through agricultural activities and generate their income. Even the borrowers have chances to receive the loans, the microfinance institutions and banks are facing the problems to recover the loans from the borrowers. Thus, default rate among the borrowers has been increasing over time which is the difficult task to manage the banks and financial institutions. There are a number of many factors particularly demographic and farming characters that affect the loan repayment rates. There has not been any empirical research conducted regarding to repayment performance among the borrowers who get the loans from SANASA Thrift, Credit and Cooperative Society (TCCS) banks in Vavuniya district. Therefore, this study tries to provide the relevant information for a better understanding on the determinants of loan repayment performance of the borrowers and the information will be useful for policy makers, other lending institutions and stakeholders for their future decision making on granting the loans for their clients.

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.