This paper provides evidence that commercial lenders in Peru free ride off their peers' screening efforts. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, the study finds that competing lenders responded to additional loan approvals by issuing approvals of their own....

Nigeria is an entrepreneurial economy with an estimated thirty seven million Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) in the country, and their contribution to economic growth and job creation is significant. There are also a large number of self-employed entrepreneurs who support...

This paper examines changes in bank capital and capital regulations since the global financial crisis, in the Europe and Central Asia region. It shows that banks in Europe and Central Asia are better capitalized, as measured by regulatory capital ratios, than they were prior to the crisis....

Using a new and representative data set of Chinese household finance, this paper documents household access to and costs of finance, along with their correlates. As in most developing countries, informal finance is a crucial element of household finance, and wealth tends to be associated with...

Financial Cooperatives (FCs) are important providers of financial services to poor and middle-income people, and significant drivers of financial inclusion. Aside from their strong presence and relevance in developed economies, especially Europe and North America, the significance of financial...

This note provides a set of high-level recommendations that can guide national regulatory and supervisory responses to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and offers an overview of measures taken across jurisdictions to date. The banking sector plays a critical role in mitigating the...