Banking The World

Experts report on the latest research on extending access to financial services to the 2.5 billion adults around the world who lack it. About 2.5 billion adults, just over half the world's adult population, lack bank accounts. If we are to realize the goal of extending banking and other financial services to this vast “unbanked” population, we need to consider not only such product innovations as microfinance and mobile banking but also issues of data accuracy, impact assessment, risk mitigation, technology adaptation, financial literacy, and local context. In Banking the World, experts take up these topics, reporting on new research that will guide both policy makers and scholars in a broader push to extend financial markets. The contributors consider such topics as the complexity of surveying people about their use of financial services; evidence of the impact of financial services on income; the occasional negative effects of financial services on poor households, including disincentives to work and overindebtedness; and tools for improving access such as nontraditional credit scores, financial incentives for banking, and identification technologies that can dramatically reduce loan default rates.

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.

This is a revision of the business of global banking. With the increased globalization of the world economy few sectors are the equal of banking and financial services in dynamism or structural change. Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter assess this transformation-its causes, its course and its consequences. They begon by examining international commercial banking, including the issue of cross-border risk evaluation and exposure management, and the creation of a viable regulatory framework in a global competitive context. hey then undertake a parallel assessment of international investment banking, linking the two by means of a bridge chapter. Finally, they focus on the factors that determine winners and losers in these markets and explore the problems of strategic position and execution.

Never has the World Bank's relief work been more important than in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohn—the unstoppable power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planet's wealth in an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global development is that rare triumph—an emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age. This edition features a new afterword by the author that analyzes the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohn's successor at the World bank

A sweeping look at the evolution of commercial banks over the past two centuries Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes the first truly comparative look at the development of commercial banking systems over the past two centuries in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Grossman focuses on four major elements that have contributed to banking evolution: crises, bailouts, mergers, and regulations. He explores where banking crises come from and why certain banking systems are more resistant to crises than others, how governments and financial systems respond to crises, why merger movements suddenly take off, and what motivates governments to regulate banks. Grossman reveals that many of the same components underlying the history of banking evolution are at work today. The recent subprime mortgage crisis had its origins, like many earlier banking crises, in a boom-bust economic cycle. Grossman finds that important historical elements are also at play in modern bailouts, merger movements, and regulatory reforms. Unsettled Account is a fascinating and informative must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the modern commercial banking system came to be, where it is headed, and how its development will affect global economic growth.

Women, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year’s report updates all indicators as of October 1, 2020 and builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law 2021 makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic empowerment. Prepared during a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, this edition also includes important findings on government responses to COVID-19 and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice.

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The turmoil in financial markets that resulted from the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis in the United States indicates the need to dramatically transform regulation and supervision of financial institutions. Would these institutions have been sounder if the 2004 Revised Framework on International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards (Basel II accord)—negotiated between 1999 and 2004—had already been fully implemented? Basel II represents a dramatic change in capital regulation of large banks in the countries represented on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: Its internal ratings–based approaches to capital regulation will allow large banks to use their own credit risk models to set minimum capital requirements. The Basel Committee itself implicitly acknowledged in spring 2008 that the revised framework would not have been adequate to contain the risks exposed by the subprime crisis and needed strengthening. This crisis has highlighted two more basic questions about Basel II: One, is the method of capital regulation incorporated in the revised framework fundamentally misguided? Two, even if the basic Basel II approach has promise as a paradigm for domestic regulation, is the effort at extensive international harmonization of capital rules and supervisory practice useful and appropriate? This book provides the answers. It evaluates Basel II as a bank regulatory paradigm and as an international arrangement, considers some possible alternatives, and recommends significant changes in the arrangement.

Global governance of international banks is breaking down after the Great Financial Crisis, as national regulators are withdrawing on their home turf. New evidence presented illustrates that the global systemically important banks underpin the global financial system. This book offers solutions for the effective governance of global banks.