Banking financial intermediation relative to the economy is low and declining. The depthof the Romanian banking sector is lagging both in terms of deposit and loan penetration. Cross-cutting factors such as poverty, rurality and informality form a set of constraints that still persist affecting...

The Philippines corporate debt and equity markets will need to grow to provide alternative financing sources to support the strongly growing economy and emphasis on infrastructure spend. Capital markets deepening will be an essential pre-requisite for the country's continued economic...

The Chinese insurance sector is experiencing rapid growth, posing particular challenges to effective supervision. The sector has been growing by over 20 percent a year and there are ambitious government targets for further development. Many individual, often newer, companies are growing at rates...

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has maintained its momentum in regulation and supervision in the face of exceptional growth in scale and increasing complexity of the banking system. Equally, the CBRC has risen to the demands of the international regulatory reform agenda,...

China's landscape for Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) is one of the largest and most complex in the world. It consists of a range of payment, clearing and settlement systems, including several interbank payment systems, securities settlement systems and central counterparties (CCPs)....

China has made significant progress in financial inclusion. High levels of account penetration, savings, and usage of payments services have been achieved, largely due to extensive branches and access points (particularly a vast network of rural cash withdrawal points), innovations by non-bank...

Mexico's challenges in infrastructure finance can be framed along similar lines as other Advanced Economies (AEs) and large Emerging Market Economies (EMEs). Mexico is particularly well placed to make capital markets a reliable financing source complementing bank financing. Its capital markets...

The responsibilities of the regulator should be clearly and objectively stated. The regulator should be operationally independent and accountable in the exercise of its functions and powers. The regulator should have adequate powers, proper resources and the capacity to perform its functions and...

This assessment finds that Argentina has made significant progress to improve its securities regulatory system within the existing legal framework. Specifically, Argentina operates a highly, even uniquely, transparent securities regulatory program. The assessment also finds that the Argentine...