Experience from the African Department’s Pilot Countries

This paper assesses and disseminates experiences and lessons from low-income countries (LICs) in Sub-Saharan Africa that were selected by the Africa Department in 2015-16 as pilots for enhanced analysis of macro-financial linkages in Article IV staff reports. The paper focuses on the common characteristics across the pilot countries and highlights the tools used in the analysis, the challenges encountered, and the solutions deployed in overcoming them.

FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry. While it raises concerns on the emergence of vulnerabilities, FinTech challenges traditional structures and creates efficiency gains by opening up the financial services value chain. Today, FinTech is emerging as a technological enabler in the region, improving financial inclusion and serving as a catalyst for the emergence of innovations in other sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure.

This enhanced review of Senegal’s financial sector is one of several pilot reviews called for by the Executive Board in May 2012. The purpose of the reviews is to go beyond the traditional surveillance focus on banking system soundness and solvency by analyzing in more depth the interplay between financial development, macroeconomic and financial stability, and effectiveness of macroeconomic policies in low-income countries. Senegal is a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union; a number of key macroeconomic and financial policies are designed and implemented at the union level. This study focuses on Senegal-specific issues. Another pilot study, to be prepared in the context of the next annual consultation on regional policies in early 2013, will focus on union-wide issues.

The first part of the book examines the evolution of monetary policy and prudential frameworks of the ASEAN5, with particular focus on changes since the Asian financial crisis and the more recent period of unconventional monetary policy in advanced economies. The second part of the book looks at policy responses to global financial spillovers. The third and last part of the book elaborates on the challenges ahead for monetary policy, financial stability frameworks, and the deepening of financial markets.

Growth perspectives in emerging market economies are increasingly dependent on international capital flows in recent decades because of their influences on business cycles. In fact, volatile international capital flows has been one of the main concerns for the macroeconomic policy authorities. Focusing on emerging economies in the Pacific region, this book reveals how they are different from those in other regions in terms of international macro-financial linkages to the global capital market and domestic financial development,. The book also discusses how these characteristics have interacted with their macroeconomic policy regimes and their macroeconomic performance throughout the two major international financial crises in the past more than two decades. It suggests facts that have strengthened the resilience of these emerging economies in the Pacific region against the global financial crisis along with the intensified intra-regional economic integration through trade and investment. The book also examines their macroeconomic management focusing on monetary policy regimes and suggests that their factual unorthodox policies with exchange rate management and capital controls have contributed to their resilience against the intrinsic volatility of the international capital market and financial flows.

The events of the past six months have demonstrated the fragility of the global financial system and raised fundamental questions about the effectiveness of the response by private and public sector institutions. the report assesses the vulnerabilities that the system is facing and offers tentative conclusions and policy lessons. the report reflects information available up to March 21, 2008.