Other Financial Accountability Study

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  • Publication
    Anticorruption Initiatives: Reaffirming Commitment to a Development Priority
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12-20) World Bank Group
    Corruption continues to have a disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable, increasing the cost of, and reducing access to, health, education, justice, electricity and other basic services, thereby exacerbating inequality. It reduces private investment as it increases risks for investors, with consequent effects on growth and jobs. It distorts public spending decisions and weakens the quality of public investments as substandard infrastructure gets built and the regulatory systems for quality control and safety are bypassed. It erodes public trust in governments, undermining their legitimacy and posing a threat to peace and stability. This paper draws on these lessons and proposes a new approach, both in terms of what we work on and how we work, focusing on initiatives to be led by the Bank’s EFI vice presidency to reaffirm the Bank’s commitment to anticorruption. The initiatives refresh approaches that are showing results, scale up those that are emerging and show promise, or experiment and innovate where fresh thinking is needed in our support to client countries to help them control corruption. In this note, corruption is seen as both a symptom of underlying governance challenges and a problem in and of itself. For practical purposes, and to keep the focus on corruption, the initiatives do not expound on the many aspects of governance that influence corruption. The paper also does not focus on efforts to control corruption risk in World Bank operations, but rather focus on the support that the EFI Vice Presidency will provide to countries in their efforts to control corruption.
  • Publication
    Common Core Accounting Syllabus for Universities
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-09-13) World Bank Group
    Strengthening Auditing and Reporting in the Countries of the Eastern Partnership (STAREP) is a regional program of the Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR). The program aims to create a transparent policy environment and effective institutional framework for corporate reporting within the countries that make up the European Union’s Eastern Partnership: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. STAREP’s focus is on the improvement of corporate financial reporting frameworks and their effective implementation. As many countries move towards the adoption of international and regional standards in accounting and auditing, there is a need to ensure high quality, relevant education both for those entering the profession and for ongoing professional development throughout their career. The World Bank’s Accounting and Auditing Education Community of Practice (EduCoP) has enabled shared and peer learning, supporting national efforts to develop accounting and auditing education capacity.
  • Publication
    Product Design and Distribution: Emerging Regulatory Approaches for Retail Banking Products
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08) World Bank Group
    This note discusses emerging international approaches for regulating design and distribution of retail banking products. Such products include deposit, credit, and payment products, being the products that new financial consumers typically acquire first. Policy makers are finding that financial consumer protection measures implemented to date, such as disclosure requirements, while still important, are insufficient to protect consumers against all key risks. Anticipating new or changing risks to consumers has also become more difficult for regulators given rapid financial sector innovation. Regulation of providers’ product design and distribution processes aims to ensure that products distributed in a market are designed to meet the needs of consumers in that market. This discussion note analyses relevant frameworks in a number of jurisdictions and highlights emerging common approaches, including in relation to requirements for governance arrangements, target market assessments, distribution arrangements and product reviews.
  • Publication
    Accountants as Catalysts for Growth in the Western Balkans: Initial Assessment of SME's Financial Management and Financial Governance
    (World Bank, Vienna, 2019-05-08) World Bank Group
    Good financial management and financial governance is not only an imperative for the largest companies; smaller privately-owned businesses dominate economies in the Western Balkans providing most of jobs and contributing most of the value added to the economy, and so it is essential that smaller businesses with high growth potential are not constrained by poor financial management practices. The World Bank’s Center for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR) has developed a landscape assessment approach” that aims to identify the state of financial management and financial governance practices of Micro, Small and Medium Sized Entities (MSMEs) in the Western Balkans and opportunities for improvement, building on the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs) performed in the region. The landscape assessment approach has been developed by the CFRR under the Accountants as Catalysts for Growth (A4G) initiative which aims to leverage the accounting profession to support improvements in the management of the financial health of MSMEs. This work compliments the Reports on Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs) that have been completed by looking at non-standard aspects of financial management. Preliminary landscape assessments have been performed in Serbia and Albania; however, this work has not yet been formally reported. These preliminary assessments have been performed to test the assessment approach before a broader roll-out under the future EU-REPARIS program work as well as identify the key financial management and financial governance practices of MSMEs that need improvement, based on stakeholder observation, and consider factors that may be giving rise to such practices and possible approaches to address them. Reports for Serbia and Albania will be completed once the assessment is finalized which may include further work in both countries resulting from refinements to the assessment approach. Stakeholder observations obtained from preliminary assessment work were used to identify financial management deficiencies in MSMEs, possible causal factors, and approaches to improvement. Stakeholders identified some fundamental deficiencies in financial management and financial governance of MSMEs in Serbia and Albania that appear to be systemic and may constrain the MSME Sector’s development overall.is important to note that these are not expressed as actionable recommendations; they are offered as key themes that should be discussed by the main stakeholders to coordinate and identify agreed actions with these themes and others. A key issue identified at this initial stage of work is that approaches to address shortcomings in financial management and financial governance of MSMEs are constrained by market conditions and institutional capacity. Future work under the A4G initiative, including completing assessments in all Western Balkans countries, and developing activities to support improvements in MSME financial management and financial governance, will need to take account of the results of this preliminary assessment work.
  • Publication
    Georgia Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Performance Assessment Report: City of Batumi
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10) World Bank Group
    The purpose of this PEFA assessment is to provide an objective analysis of the present performance of the PFM system in the City of Batumi against the PEFA indicators. This PEFA provides an assessment of PFM in the municipality and establishes a PEFA baseline using the 2016 PEFA methodology. The assessment covered expenditures by subnational government budgetary units. Revenues are collected by the Georgia Revenue Services on behalf of the municipality and this was considered not applicable. There are no extra-budgetary units and no local government below the municipality level. The assessment team visited the municipality from June 5 to 9, 2018 (fieldwork for the assessment). The financial years covered for indicators that required assessing over three years are 2015 to 2017. Overall, the results of the PEFA show that public financial management systems in the City of Batumi are strong and improved as the PFM Reform Action Plan has been implemented. The aggregate expenditure side of the budget performs largely according to plan. The Georgian Treasury consolidates cash balances in the treasury single account on a daily basis. A cash flow forecast is prepared annually for the year to come and is updated quarterly on the basis of actual inflows and outflows often due to relatively frequent supplementary budget. Budgetary units are able to plan and commit expenditure for one year in advance on the basis of quarterly ceilings, in accordance with the budgeted appropriations and commitment releases. An overriding feature of PFM in the Georgia both at the Central and Subnational levels of government has been the development and good use of Information Technology in budget preparation, budget execution (accounts, commitment control, and cash management), personnel and payroll, revenue services, and procurement. The application of the IT has been developed in-country based on business processes in each of the subject areas (redefined as necessary) and not on the reconfiguration of business practices to suit software. This adoption of IT solutions combined with the internet as a vehicle for its implementation by competent and trained personnel (with appropriate control) has been fundamental to the development of strengths in PFM. The integration of IT, internet and personnel has resulted in PFM’s positive effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Publication
    Georgia Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Performance Assessment: Municipality Synthesis Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10) World Bank Group
    The purpose of this PEFA assessment synthesis report is to provide an objective analysis of the present performance of the PFM system in Georgia’s municipalities using PEFA indicators. The synthesis report provides a collective assessment of PFM in three municipalities assessed by the World Bank funded by the European Union, plus twelve municipalities assessed with support from GIZ. These assessments used the 2016 PEFA methodology but only the three assessments by the World Bank followed the PEFA CHECK quality assurance process. The field assessments by the World Bank, which covered financial years 2015-2017, were done in May-June 2018 with PEFA CHECK issued by the PEFA Secretariat on October 23, 2018. With regard to the twelve municipalities assessed by GIZ, ten were assessed in 2017 and two in 2018.
  • Publication
    Toward Universal Financial Inclusion in China: Models, Challenges, and Global Lessons
    (World Bank and People's Bank of China, 2018-02) World Bank Group; People's Bank of China
    China has achieved remarkable success in financial inclusion. China’s rate of account ownership – a basic metric of financial inclusion – has increased significantly in the past two decades and is now on par with that of other G-20 countries. Traditional financial service providers have dramatically increased the reach of the formal financial sector, including through the world’s largest agent banking network. China has also been an established leader in the fintech revolution, with new technology-driven providers transforming how millions of Chinese consumers make payments, borrow, save, invest, and insure themselves against risk. This report examines in detail China’s approach to financial inclusion over the past 15 years. The report benchmarks China’s progress against peer economies and analyzes key developments and factors in China’s financial inclusion experience. The report also outlines remaining challenges to achieving further advances in financial inclusion in China, and distills key lessons policymakers from other countries can learn from China’s experience. The report was written jointly by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the World Bank Group.
  • Publication
    Global Financial Inclusion and Consumer Protection Survey, 2017 Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12-15) World Bank Group
    Financial sector authorities increasingly prioritize financial inclusion and financial consumer protection, alongside existing priorities of stability and integrity. An enabling environment that facilitates competition, promotes innovation and the use of technology, addresses risks in a proportionate manner, and empowers financial consumers to make informed choices is critical to improving financial inclusion and consumer protection. The 2017 Global Financial Inclusion and Consumer Protection (FICP) Survey tracks the prevalence of key policy, legal, regulatory, and supervisory approaches to advancing financial inclusion and consumer protection. The 2017 Global FICP Survey covers key topics related to the enabling environment for financial inclusion and financial consumer protection, including national financial inclusion strategies, the issuance of e-money by nonbanks, agent-based delivery models, simplified customer due diligence, institutional arrangements for financial consumer protection, disclosure, dispute resolution, and financial capability. The 2017 Global FICP Survey covers regulated retail institutions that provide standard loan, deposit, or payment services. Financial sector authorities in 124 jurisdictions – representing 141 economies and more than 90 percent of the world’s unbanked adult population – responded to the 2017 Global FICP Survey. This report presents main findings from an analysis of those responses.
  • Publication
    Good Practices for Financial Consumer Protection, 2017 Edition
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12-12) World Bank Group
    Over the past decade, financial consumer protection has become an increasingly mainstream priority for policymakers. A strong consumer protection regime is key to ensuring that expanded access to financial services benefits consumers, enabling them to make well-informed decisions on how best to use financial services, building trust in the formal financial sector, and contributing to healthy and competitive financial markets. The World Bank’s Good Practices for Financial Consumer Protection (the Good Practices) was developed in 2012 as a contribution to the emerging global set of tools on financial consumer protection. Since then, international guidance and country practices regarding financial consumer protection have substantially evolved. The 2017 Good Practices is designed to serve as a comprehensive reference and assessment tool for policymakers that consolidates the latest research, international guidance, and country examples. A thorough update of the previous edition, this guide expands upon priority areas such as supervisory techniques, effective disclosure, and digital finance, and also emphasizes the practical considerations and tradeoffs that policymakers face when implementing new policies and practices.
  • Publication
    Enhancing Financial Capability and Inclusion in Zambia: A Demand-Side Assessment
    (World Bank, Zambia, 2017-11) World Bank Group
    Financial inclusion in Zambia has nearly doubled in the last ten years - from 21.3 percent in 2005 to 40.2 percent in 2016. This success was made possible by Zambia’s Financial Sector Development Plan that concluded in 2015. And yet, when compared to other lower-middle income countries, Zambia fares less favorably in terms of account ownership, accessibility of bank branches, and usage of financial services. Main cited barriers are lack of funds, high fees, time-consuming travel, and lack of trust in the financial sector. Zambia aims to achieve universal access and has committed to implementing comprehensive national strategies for financial inclusion and financial education to accelerate progress. The World Bank survey covered in this report was requested by Zambian authorities to inform their further strategy work, help formulate quantifiable and concrete targets, and assess the effectiveness of future financial capability enhancing programs. The key findings and recommendations of the report cover areas related to Financial Inclusion, Financial Capability, and Financial Consumer Protection, followed by four chapters. Chapter 1 explores the financial inclusion landscape in Zambia. Chapter 2 reviews financial capability of Zambians in terms of their financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Chapter 3 analyzes the link between financial inclusion and financial capability in Zambia, and Chapter 4 assesses whether the financial products in Zambia meet consumers’ needs.