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The credit rating industry called for many debates on its civil liability since the origin of the industry at the beginning of the twentieth century.In 2013, the Union legislature introduced a right to damages, which issuers and investors can directly enforce against credit rating agencies under Article 35a CRA Regulation.

Housing finance markets have been changing dramatically in both emerging and developed economies. On the one hand, housing finance markets are expanding and represent a powerful engine for economic growth in many emerging economies. However, the unfolding sub-prime mortgage crisis highlights the risks and potential turbulence that this sector can introduce into the financial system when expanding without proper infrastructure and regulation. As housing finance keeps growing in emerging economies to match a rising demand for housing, new risk management approaches, business models, funding tools, and policy instruments can help. Yet many questions remain about the right balance between innovation and regulation, the extent of risks to the financial system, the appropriate role of the state to promote affordable housing, and the effects of the sub-prime crisis. This book provides a guide for policymakers dealing with housing finance in emerging markets. It highlights the prerequisites for an effective housing finance system; it lays out several policy alternatives and models of housing finance; and it explores the role of governments in expanding access to housing finance for lower-income households. There is no \"best\" model set out in this book. The aim is to provide a developmental roadmap that can be tailored and sequenced to each country's situation and timing.

This report brings together the results of an eight-part series of presentations by leading experts in issues directly related to microfinance institutional sustainability. It is intended for microfinance institution (MFI) board members, managers, and staff members as well as for government regulators, supervisors, and donor staff members. The first four chapters include topics in risk management: (1) risk management systems, (2) good governance, (3) interest rates, and (4) micro-insurance. The last four chapters include four topics in new product development and efficient delivery methodologies: (5) housing microfinance, (6) micro-leasing, (7) disaster preparedness products and systems, and (8) new technologies. The objectives of the series were as follows: i) to strengthen MFIs by disseminating innovative approaches in risk management, cost control, governance, and new technologies; ii) to promote a South-South exchange of experiences and lessons learned; iii) to promote greater ties among the MFIs in the region and between MFIs and government supervisors and regulators; and iv) to highlight the Bank's ability to mobilize international technical expertise in microfinance.

East Asia and the Pacific is a region of dynamic growth. Women have contributed significantly to this growth and have benefited from it through active participation in the labor market. However, women are still disproportionately represented in the informal sector and in low paid work. Efforts to identify barriers to women's business and entrepreneurial activities in the region are critical not only to facilitate inclusive growth in a national context but also to counter the increasing trend of female migratory flows in the region. This report highlights' both the challenges and the economic opportunities for businesswomen in the region offers some useful potential pointers for reform.

Purpose This study attempts to measure the credit score literacy of borrowers in India and the effects of psychological traits and credit score literacy on borrowing behavior. The researchers develop a conceptual model for credit score literacy, psychological traits and borrowing behavior using robust theoretical support from existing literature. Thereafter, the study explores credit score literacy levels and their influence on borrowing behaviors—a relationship not explored previously. Theoretical framework The study explores the relationships under study through the “Theory of Financial Planning Behavior (TFPB)”, “Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)”, “Life Cycle Hypotheses (LCH)”, and “Behavioral Life Cycle Hypothesis (BLCH)”. Design/methodology/approach The study uses K-means cluster analysis to test literacy levels, PLS-SEM for hypothesis testing, PLS-Predict and CVPAT for testing predictive power and predictive validity of the model. A questionnaire is administered to 425 borrowers using probabilistic random-digit-dialing across India. Findings The study finds Indian adults possess low credit score literacy levels. Further, psychological traits and credit score literacy significantly affect borrowing behaviors. Borrowing behavior differs with the level of credit score literacy, irrespective of the individual's psychological traits. The model has good out-of-sample predictive power and strong predictive validity. These findings contribute to existing theories (TFPB, TPB, LCH and BLCH) by validating them in the context of the current study. Originality The study develops a conceptual model for credit score literacy, psychological traits and borrowing behavior using robust theoretical support from existing literature. Thereafter, the study explores credit score literacy levels and their influence on borrowing behaviors—a relationship not explored previously. Finally, the study tests the predictive power and predictive validity of the conceptual model. Limitations The research is cross-sectional, does not isolate the effects of experience, makes assumptions about causality, has a limited sample size and an explanatory power of around 50%.

Departing from the existing literature, which associates credit information sharing with improved access to credit in advanced economies, we examine whether credit information sharing can also reduce loan default rate for banks domiciled in developing countries. Using a large dataset covering 879 unique banks from 87 developing countries from every continent, over a 9-year period (i.e., over 6300 observations), we uncover three new findings. First, we find that credit information sharing reduces loan default rate. Second, we show that the relationship between credit information sharing and loan default rate is conditional on banking market concentration. Third, our findings suggest that governance quality at the country level does not have a strong moderating role on the effect of credit information sharing on loan default rate.

Fostering the entrepreneurship of women is important for Pakistan's economic growth and inclusion agenda, and access to financial services is an important component of starting and growing a business for women entrepreneurs. Most women?owned businesses are small, household?based cottage industries; microfinance products should be a natural source of start?up and working capital finance for this clientele. Microfinance portfolio data suggest that although Pakistan's sector has shown improvement in reaching women, it still lags its regional peers, only 59 percent of microfinance clients are women. The original purpose of this work was to determine whether women entrepreneurs have access to, and are using, microfinance loans as a source of finance for their businesses. However, the findings of the report go beyond the narrow objective of understanding whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) are reaching Pakistan's businesswomen. As the research unfolded, the evidence suggested that not only are women entrepreneurs not being served, but also that the outreach to women in general is potentially more limited than previously assumed and that the issues of consumer protection and responsible lending practices in Pakistan might merit further exploration. The report raises and addresses two distinct issues. First, some evidence suggests that women are often not the final users of loans, but rather are conduits to male household members. The report documents findings that suggest that the practice of passing on loans to male household members is potentially quite widespread; women may be bearing all the transaction costs and risks of accessing loans, but are not the final beneficiaries. Second, a very low proportion of female microfinance clients are entrepreneurs. The report explores why businesswomen in Pakistan may not be using microfinance products to meet their startup and working capital requirements, in spite of identifying access to finance as a key constraint to their business operations. The report focuses on products, services, policies, and other elements of the business model of microfinance in Pakistan that affect both demand for and access to microfinance by women borrowers, some of whom fall into the narrower category of entrepreneurs.

This book's prime audience is government policy-makers. It provides a policy framework for governments to increase micro, small and medium enterprises' access to financial services?one which is based on empirical evidence from around the world. Financial sector policies in many developing countries often work against the ability of commercial financial institutions to serve this market segment, albeit, often unintentionally. The framework guides governments on how to best focus scarce resources on three things: ? developing an inclusive financial sector policy; ? building healthy financial institutions; and ? investing in information infrastructure such as credit bureaus and accounting standards. The book provides examples and case studies of how such a strategy has helped to build more inclusive financial institutions and systems in many countries.

Information from 209 banks in 62 countries is used to develop new indicators of barriers to banking services around the world, show their correlation with measures of outreach, and explore their association with bank and country characteristics suggested by theory as potential determinants. Barriers such as minimum account and loan balances, account fees, and required documents are associated with lower levels of banking outreach. While country characteristics linked with financial depth, such as the effectiveness of creditor rights, contract enforcement mechanisms, and credit information systems, are weakly correlated with barriers, strong associations are found between barriers and measures of restrictions on bank activities and entry, bank disclosure practices and media freedom, and development of physical infrastructure. In particular, barriers are higher in countries where there are more stringent restrictions on bank activities and entry, less disclosure and media freedom, and poorly developed physical infrastructure. Also, barriers for bank customers are higher where banking systems are predominantly government-owned and are lower where there is more foreign bank participation. Larger banks seem to impose lower barriers on customers, perhaps because they are better positioned to exploit economies of scale and scope.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the determinants of a shift in lending towards household sectors during the growth of fintech credit using a sample of 41 countries between 2015 and 2018.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a fixed-effects model by adding indicators for geographic areas and year dummy variables to achieve this objective.FindingsThe findings show that the household credit to firm credit ratio is positively associated with credit information sharing and financial literacy, emphasising the importance of credit information sharing mechanism and financial literacy to household credit growth. More interestingly, the findings show that fintech credit development plays a more critical role in the evolution of firm credit than household credit. Nonetheless, fintech credit development may complement the growth of conventional lending. The results still hold when using several robustness checks.Originality/valueThis is the first attempt to examine the roles of credit information sharing, financial literacy and fintech credit development in a shift in lending activities towards households.