Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons

Autores
Bebczuk, Ricardo Néstor
Año de publicación
2008
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
documento de trabajo
Estado
versión enviada
Descripción
Our study critically surveys financial inclusion in Latin American and Caribbean countries, gauging access to both credit and deposit accounts by poor households. Our review confirms some pieces of conventional wisdom in this area, but challenges some others. Regarding the latter, we claim that (a) Limited financial inclusion does not simply follows from unfair discrimination against the poor, but to a great deal from a low demand for financial services and scarce access for the population at large. In this sense, we argue that supply-side constraints have a second-order importance; (b) Despite the impressive progress of microfinance in recent years, stakeholders should avoid overoptimism, rooted in an apparent over-advertisement of a few successful cases. While a potentially powerful tool to fight poverty, microcredit must be carefully targeted, and granted by highly specialized intermediaries under commercially-oriented criteria; (c) Although financial inclusion is a social matter, the private sector has provided more and better responses than the public sector. Furthermore, these private programs have proven to be quite profitable; (d) Recent experiences in several LAC countries hint that governments can play a decisive role in coordinating financial inclusion initiatives, leading normative changes, and supporting innovative banking outreach strategies without engaging directly in credit allocation; and (e) Governments, donors and intermediaries should make coordinated efforts to assemble microdata and encourage sound impact evaluations comparable across countries and time. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the analysis.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)
Materia
Economía
política económica
América Latina
crédito
Región del Caribe
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/3627

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spelling Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessonsBebczuk, Ricardo NéstorEconomíapolítica económicaAmérica LatinacréditoRegión del CaribeOur study critically surveys financial inclusion in Latin American and Caribbean countries, gauging access to both credit and deposit accounts by poor households. Our review confirms some pieces of conventional wisdom in this area, but challenges some others. Regarding the latter, we claim that (a) Limited financial inclusion does not simply follows from unfair discrimination against the poor, but to a great deal from a low demand for financial services and scarce access for the population at large. In this sense, we argue that supply-side constraints have a second-order importance; (b) Despite the impressive progress of microfinance in recent years, stakeholders should avoid overoptimism, rooted in an apparent over-advertisement of a few successful cases. While a potentially powerful tool to fight poverty, microcredit must be carefully targeted, and granted by highly specialized intermediaries under commercially-oriented criteria; (c) Although financial inclusion is a social matter, the private sector has provided more and better responses than the public sector. Furthermore, these private programs have proven to be quite profitable; (d) Recent experiences in several LAC countries hint that governments can play a decisive role in coordinating financial inclusion initiatives, leading normative changes, and supporting innovative banking outreach strategies without engaging directly in credit allocation; and (e) Governments, donors and intermediaries should make coordinated efforts to assemble microdata and encourage sound impact evaluations comparable across countries and time. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the analysis.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)2008info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersionDocumento de trabajohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajoapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/3627enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/http://cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/download.php?file=archivos_upload/doc_cedlas68.pdfinfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-09-29T10:49:16Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/3627Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-09-29 10:49:16.896SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
title Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
spellingShingle Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
Bebczuk, Ricardo Néstor
Economía
política económica
América Latina
crédito
Región del Caribe
title_short Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
title_full Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
title_fullStr Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
title_full_unstemmed Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
title_sort Financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean: review and lessons
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Bebczuk, Ricardo Néstor
author Bebczuk, Ricardo Néstor
author_facet Bebczuk, Ricardo Néstor
author_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Economía
política económica
América Latina
crédito
Región del Caribe
topic Economía
política económica
América Latina
crédito
Región del Caribe
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Our study critically surveys financial inclusion in Latin American and Caribbean countries, gauging access to both credit and deposit accounts by poor households. Our review confirms some pieces of conventional wisdom in this area, but challenges some others. Regarding the latter, we claim that (a) Limited financial inclusion does not simply follows from unfair discrimination against the poor, but to a great deal from a low demand for financial services and scarce access for the population at large. In this sense, we argue that supply-side constraints have a second-order importance; (b) Despite the impressive progress of microfinance in recent years, stakeholders should avoid overoptimism, rooted in an apparent over-advertisement of a few successful cases. While a potentially powerful tool to fight poverty, microcredit must be carefully targeted, and granted by highly specialized intermediaries under commercially-oriented criteria; (c) Although financial inclusion is a social matter, the private sector has provided more and better responses than the public sector. Furthermore, these private programs have proven to be quite profitable; (d) Recent experiences in several LAC countries hint that governments can play a decisive role in coordinating financial inclusion initiatives, leading normative changes, and supporting innovative banking outreach strategies without engaging directly in credit allocation; and (e) Governments, donors and intermediaries should make coordinated efforts to assemble microdata and encourage sound impact evaluations comparable across countries and time. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the analysis.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)
description Our study critically surveys financial inclusion in Latin American and Caribbean countries, gauging access to both credit and deposit accounts by poor households. Our review confirms some pieces of conventional wisdom in this area, but challenges some others. Regarding the latter, we claim that (a) Limited financial inclusion does not simply follows from unfair discrimination against the poor, but to a great deal from a low demand for financial services and scarce access for the population at large. In this sense, we argue that supply-side constraints have a second-order importance; (b) Despite the impressive progress of microfinance in recent years, stakeholders should avoid overoptimism, rooted in an apparent over-advertisement of a few successful cases. While a potentially powerful tool to fight poverty, microcredit must be carefully targeted, and granted by highly specialized intermediaries under commercially-oriented criteria; (c) Although financial inclusion is a social matter, the private sector has provided more and better responses than the public sector. Furthermore, these private programs have proven to be quite profitable; (d) Recent experiences in several LAC countries hint that governments can play a decisive role in coordinating financial inclusion initiatives, leading normative changes, and supporting innovative banking outreach strategies without engaging directly in credit allocation; and (e) Governments, donors and intermediaries should make coordinated efforts to assemble microdata and encourage sound impact evaluations comparable across countries and time. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the analysis.
publishDate 2008
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2008
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info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion
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http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042
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language eng
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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