Reverse stress tests can be a useful tool to evaluate bank resilience to a credit shock, especially in environments where financial data are limited or opaque. This paper develops a simple and transparent country-level banking sector resilience indicator that focuses on tail risks, the...

Fintech-the application of digital technology to financial services-is reshaping the future of finance. Digital technologies are revolutionizing payments, lending, investment, insurance, and other financial products and services-and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process....

Many countries in the MENA region have established partial credit guarantee schemes to facilitate SME access to finance. These schemes can play an important role, especially in a period where MENA governments are making efforts to improve the effectiveness of credit registries and bureaus and...

Among the principal constraints for SME lending is the lack of SME transparency, poor credit information from credit registries and bureaus, and weak creditor rights. If constraints can be addressed, lending can potentially reach bank targets of 21 percent. State banks still play an important...

This paper studies the extent of bank competition in the Middle East and Northern Africa region during 1994-2008, using non-structural measures of competition such as the H-statistic and the Lerner index. Both these measures suggest that banking sector competition in the region is lower relative...

The rapid growth of the market for retirement products in Chile has its origins in the pension reform that was implemented in 1981. But the successful development of an active annuity market also reflects many other factors. This paper summarizes and updates an earlier longer study on the...