This note examines the implications of digital innovation for market structure and attendant policies, including financial and competition regulation. There have been several surveys of regulatory responses. This note takes a step back, to look at what the economic theory of banking and...

Fintech is transforming the global financial landscape. It is creating new opportunities to advance financial inclusion and development in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs), but also presents risks that require updated supervision policy frameworks. Fintech encompasses new...

This note provides: (1) an overview of new manifestations of consumer risks that are significant and cross-cutting across four key fintech products: digital microcredit, P2PL, investment-based crowdfunding, and e-money; and (2) examples of emerging regulatory approaches to target such risks....

Retail payment systems play an important role in the smooth functioning of any economy, and thus any inefficiency in the retail payments market can send negative effects cascading throughout the financial realm. The World Bank Global Payment Systems Survey 2010 has shown that inefficiencies...

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...

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...

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...

Authorities in Mexico are seeking solutions to the complex task of improving efficiency in the financial and government sectors when identifying individuals and legal entities, while balancing other public-policy objectives, such as governance, technological neutrality, safety, privacy, and...

Madagascar is an island nation located in the Indian Ocean off the south-eastern coast of Africa, and the fourth-largest island in the world. Despite the country's extensive economic opportunities and expansive natural resources, real GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the world. This...