Despite improvement over the last decade, financial inclusion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remains relatively low. According to the Global Findex, only 53% of adults in MENA have an account (including mobile money) as of 2021, up from 38% in 2011. By comparison, the same headline indicator for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 stood … Read more
Getting a bank loan for the first time enables an individual to enter a virtuous lending circle. This loan allows obtaining credit reports, which will be used by the bank and its competitors to analyze new credit requirements from then onward (figure 1). How do individuals get in this loop? Banks usually make their lending … Read more
Climate risks and climate policies are expected to have a major impact on the financial system. In recent years, financial authorities have required banks to embed climate risks into their risk management frameworks, including in their Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process, the so-called ICAAP. While some policy makers are exploring the explicit use of prudential … Read more
Although it is a factor in financial inclusion and development, the growth of mobile banking in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has nonetheless gone hand in hand with a growing gender gap in financial inclusion. This unexpected consequence of financial digitalisation calls for a rethink of development policies. Chart 1. Bank coverage (adult population with an account, … Read more
The financial industry has undergone several changes in recent years: the emergence of new technologies, the entry of fintechs, and the transition from a physical branch- based business model to an increasing reliance on digital services. These trends can foster competition and the democratization of financial services. In our recent working paper, we investigate how the … Read more
What fresh apocalypse is this? In a world already acutely attuned to end-times, it’s increasingly hard to keep track of all the fictional dystopias that books and movies and TV shows seem so eager to throw at us like Mardi Gras beads. (You get a plague! You get a plague!) But Armageddon, of course, is … Read more
To strip, perchance to dream; such were the humble hopes of Channing Tatum’s “Magic” Mike Lane when this all began. And what the first film delivered back in 2012 was a kind of movie magic: a scrappy, scampish novelty about Florida men who take their pants off for a living, delivered with loose-limbed auteur style … Read more
It is probably not great news for your project if you spend half the press tour defending your lack of red-carpet chemistry with your co-star. The carpet may be kinder, though, or at least mercifully briefer, than actually sitting through Your Place or Mine, an experience that often feels like watching two movie stars try … Read more
This review initially ran out of the Sundance Film Festival in February 2021. CODA will be released Aug. 13 in theaters and on Apple TV+. The Sundance Film Festival is still often a place for small unpolished gems. But CODA, which premiered there on Thursday night, is the kind of movie that seems to arrive … Read more
Movies and video games have changed a lot since the last time Mario and Luigi were on the big screen. When Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo played the titular roles in 1993’s Super Mario Bros., the concept of adaptation was very loose: The idea wasn’t to replicate the experience of playing a Mario video game … Read more