This paper presents a World Bank led and Russia trust fund financed work program to measure financial capability and the effectiveness of financial education in low and middle income countries. The two activities and their staging have been motivated by the lessons of high-income countries with...

Financial Technology has shifted the way consumers use banking. Implementing new technology like big data, analytics, cloud computing and deep learning, banks can significantly improve accessibility, inclusivity, and increase profitability for banks. This article looks at the possible effect of...

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...

Many empirical studies have examined the determinants of financial development in emerging and developing economies. However, the determinants of financial development are dynamic, multi-layered, and are affected by technological progress and country-specific characteristics. In particular, the...

Recent innovations in digital financial technologies (FinTech) have called into question the role of FinTech in financial development. This study examines FinTech's direct and conditional effects on financial development using data from emerging and developing economies. Three measures of...

Asia's bank-centered financial systems require the reduced supply-demand gap in lending as a core policy pillar to improve small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) access to finance. Meanwhile, the diversification of financing modalities beyond conventional bank lending is another key policy...