Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation in Focus

26 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/24198

The series captures the experience, innovative approaches and solutions for development of the World Bank Group covering financial sector topics of relevance to both the public and private sectors. The series is comprised of short knowledge notes, policy notes, case studies, lessons learned or a combination therein. This series was formerly known as Finance in Focus.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Strengthening Service Delivery of Investment Promotion Agencies: The Comprehensive Investor Services Framework
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03) Heilbron, Armando; Aranda-Larrey, Yago
Research shows that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) may be the best public institutions to meet government objectives for attracting, establishing, retaining, expanding, and linking productive private investment. As part of this, IPAs need to provide relevant, high-quality services to investors at different stages of the investment life cycle. Informed by its research and experience in global operations, the World Bank Group introduces the Comprehensive Investor Services Framework (CISF), a catalog of specific services to meet investor needs. IPAs can use this investor-centric framework to design service offerings in line with their strategic focus and promotion capacity.
Institutions for Investment: Establishing a High-Performing Institutional Framework for Foreign Direct Investment
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-12-31) Heilbron, Armando; Whyte, Robert
A well-functioning institutional framework can result in higher levels of foreign direct investment. It requires several factors such as a shared strategic vision, solid institutions capable of delivering on their specific mandates and collaborating beyond their walls, and a strong political and financial support for all. The note describes key government functions for investment, suggests a process and principles for creating optimal institutional structures to deliver them, and provides examples. In particular, it examines the role of investment promotion agencies (IPAs) the agency usually tasked with operationalizing government FDI goals as well as the dilemmas that governments face in the context of institutional specialization versus function consolidation.
Financial Safety Nets and Bank Resolution Frameworks in Southern Africa: Summary of Key Issues and Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04) Mortlock, Geof; Casal, Julian; Berg, Gunhild
This report provides an assessment of the current state of development of financial safety nets and bank resolution frameworks in eight countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Eswatini [formerly Swaziland], Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). It has been prepared to inform ongoing and planned technical assistance projects in the southern Africa region and to provide a basis for engagement with the authorities in each of the countries covered by the study. This summary draws from more detailed material contained in a comprehensive study.
Expanding Access to Finance for Small-Scale Businesses: Secured Transactions Reform--An Indonesia Case Study
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-01-05) World Bank Group
A lack of access to finance has been one of the biggest impediments to the development and growth of the small-scale business sector in Indonesia. While micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) account for almost all employment in Indonesia (97 percent), the sector as a whole accounts for just about 57 percent of Gross National Product. Surveys suggest that one of the main constraints on the growth of the sector is a lack of access to finance, with almost half of Indonesian MSMEs citing access to finance as the top constraint to business growth. In 2012 the World Bank Group (WBG), in partnership with Switzerland and Japan, engaged with the Government of Indonesia to improve access to finance for the small-scale sector by enabling the use of movable collateral for formal lending. The use of movable collateral, such as vehicles, machinery, equipment, inventory or livestock, make it possible for enterprises and individuals who lack fixed collateral, such as land and property, to access finance. It also supports the growth of the financial sector, as it promotes portfolio diversification. This case study shows how the World Bank Group’s specialist team in Indonesia engaged with the government to promote an enabling environment and develop a sound secured transactions infrastructure to increase access to finance for the MSME sector.
Fixed Income Instruments to Mobilize Institutional Investors for SME Financing in EMEs
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017) Carvajal, Ana Fiorella; Loladze, Tamuna; Hammersley, James Walter; Anderson, Jeffrey David; Walley, Simon Christopher; Kemmish, Richard
Emerging market economies (EMEs) face significant funding gaps in strategic sectors, such as infrastructure and small and medium enterprise (SME) financing, that if not addressed can stifle growth. In this context, in 2015 the finance and markets (F and M) global practice led the production of a joint World Bank Group (WBG) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report for the G20 on capital markets instruments to mobilize institutional investors to infrastructure and SME financing in emerging market economies. The report focuses on fixed income instruments that can help mobilize domestic institutional investors, in particular pension funds and insurance companies, to infrastructure and SME financing in EMEs and provide policy recommendations to facilitate their use.
Transforming Health through e-Payments in India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017) Isern, Jennifer; Sharma, Anita; Marin, Georgina
The World Bank Group (WBG), in collaboration with the Government of Bihar, is implementing a government-to-person (G2P) health payments project with co-funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The timeliness and integrity of these monetary incentives are key to their effectiveness. In late 2009, WBG began discussions with the State Health Society of Bihar (SHSB) and BMGF about delays and inefficiencies related to conditional incentive payments to health program beneficiaries and health workers. On the basis of those initial discussions, WBG conducted a diagnostic with SHSB on health payments in Bihar in 2010-11. WBG found that health programs in Bihar experienced significant delays (ranging from two months to two years) in making incentive payments and that health officials spent nearly 30 percent of their time administering payments instead of providing health care services. To address those challenges, WBG recommended that SHSB modernize its health payment system by: (a) automating the calculation, verification, and recording of payments; (b) enabling centralized payment processing; and (c) making payments using electronic funds transfers directly into beneficiary bank accounts.
Azerbaijan: Leveraging Postal Network for Financial and Social Inclusion
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) Prigozhina, Angela; Boon, Johannes
This paper provides a brief overview of the postal network reform in Azerbaijan and transformation of Azerpost, Azerbaijan’s state postal operator, into an efficient platform for basic financial services delivery throughout the country. This complex reform, supported by the World Bank loan for Financial Services Development Project and the grants from the Swiss Office of International Cooperation (SECO), was launched in 2006 and helped the government of Azerbaijan to improve financial services delivery and inclusion in the country in parallel with modernizing and digitalizing Azerpost, expanding its financial services delivery capacity, enhancing its financial viability and maximizing the public value of Azerpost extensive branch network of 1,600 offices. In the period of 2007-1H2015, Azerpost total revenues, largely from financial services (as universal postal services remain loss-making) tripled, while volume of financial services’ sales increased four times. In 2015, Azerpost reached financial breakeven without state subsidy, and productivity of its staff increased 3 times. In 2009, Azerpost corporatized and became LLC, while in 2010, based on the new postal legislation, it was licensed as a non-bank financial institution subject to prudential supervision of the central bank.