This Policy Note focuses on distribution channels, the role they play in product diversification and costs, and how regulation can promote competition in mutual funds (MFs) distribution. In many emerging market economics (EMEs) where both the capital markets and the MFs have reached certain...

This World Bank publication provides an overview of mutual funds in developing countries, outlining their role in the financial sector; the different types of mutual funds; the structure of the mutual fund industry; and the industry's interdependency with other sectors such as pension funds and...

The overarching objective of the Seoul Center for Finance and Innovation partnership was to improve and develop financial and private sectors in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region by delivering better technical assistance and advisory services to EAP countries. To achieve this objective, the...

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) comes at critical moment in Tunisia. Since the 2011 revolution and the promulgation of a new constitution in 2014, Tunisia has been navigating a difficult political transition. While there have been gains in poverty reduction, public trust in government...

This Good Practice Handbook is designed to provide guidance to practitioners on taking rigorous and consistent approaches to assess hydropower project impacts on downstream river ecosystems and people, and determine their Environmental Flows (EFlows) commitments. The Handbook outlines a good...

This Note provides guidance to securities markets regulators in emerging market economies (EMEs) about key regulatory issues that could affect the issuance of debt instruments for infrastructure financing over which they have some control. The Note focuses on three areas (placement regime,...

This note discusses emerging international approaches for regulating design and distribution of retail banking products. Such products include deposit, credit, and payment products, being the products that new financial consumers typically acquire first. Policy makers are finding that financial...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face significant financing gaps that stifle innovation and economic growth. The credit gap alone is estimated at dollar 4.5 trillion as of 2017 for emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) only. Bank financing has been the traditional source of...

The paper will focus on the resolution frameworks of a sample of 12 countries taken from 6 regions. The review of the sample countries is used to analyze issues that may be relevant for other countries and to discuss potential challenges faced in implementing effective safeguards. The remainder...

In this report, the authors investigate state-owned enterprise (SOE) listings as a solution to promote local capital markets development. Thus, SOE listings can offer governments an enormous opportunity to kick-start the development of their local capital markets while achieving other divestment...