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 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.

Developing countries need additional, cross-border capital channeled into their private sectors to generate employment and growth, reduce poverty, and meet the other Millennium Development Goals. Innovative financing mechanisms are necessary to make this happen. 'Innovative Financing for Development' is the first book on this subject that uses a market-based approach. It compiles pioneering methods of raising development finance including securitization of future flow receivables, diaspora bonds, and GDP-indexed bonds. It also highlights the role of shadow sovereign ratings in facilitating access to international capital markets. It argues that poor countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, can potentially raise tens of billions of dollars annually through these instruments. The chapters in the book focus on the structures of the various innovative financing mechanisms, their track records and potential for tapping international capital markets, the constraints limiting their use, and policy measures that governments and international institutions can implement to alleviate these constraints.

The Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2021 calls for collective action to address both the short-term collapse in resources of developing countries as well as long-term strategies to build back better following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.