This report is based on a study of the costs of retail payments in Kosovo, using a methodology (A Practical Guide for Measuring Retail Payment Costs) developed by the World Bank's Payment System Development Group (PSDG), part of the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice. The...

This report analyzes the digital technology adoption of Armenian firms based on the findings of the Armenia ICT Survey administered to over 1,900 firms in 2023 by the Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia (ARMSTAT), with the technical assistance of the World Bank and support of the...

There has been significant discussion on the potential power of mobile-based technologies to provide unbanked populations with access to financial instruments and channels. Through the specific use of mobile money (m-money) services, for example, customers have accessed informational services,...

The global economy is undergoing a rapid digital transformation that is changing many conventional notions about our behavior and preferences. This includes the way in which we, as consumers, as businesses, or in interactions with government, seek out goods and services and pay for them or how...

Physical cash and commercial bank money are dominant vehicles for retail payments around the world, including in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Yet payments in EMDEs are marked by several key deficiencies, such as lack of universal access to transaction accounts, widespread...

Over the years, the demand for seamless and inexpensive cross-border payments has grown in parallel with growth in international e-commerce, remittances and tourism. Yet, cross-border payments have not kept pace with the intensive modernization that has characterized domestic payment services...

In recent years, due to innovations in technology, the concept of digital currency has emerged out of the desire of some private entities to replicate specific properties of cash in the digital space. Digital currencies have been issued in various electronic formats and value propositions, and...

Payment and settlement systems and services have become vital components of the economic life of contemporary societies. Over the last decades, they have gone through several waves of reforms that have changed the landscape of the national payments system (NPS) in virtually every country in the...

This note focuses on the regulatory and market environment relevant to the emergence and adoption of innovative delivery channels to promote greater financial inclusion in Malaysia. Financial inclusion is defined here not only as providing access to financial services, but also as enabling and...

This Global Economic Prospects (GEP) is being released during a period of increased uncertainty following four years of record growth in developing countries, and a 15-year period of steady declines in poverty. Global growth slowed modestly in 2007, coming at 3.5 percent after 3.9 percent in...