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This study investigates the influence of a country’s financial access and stability and the adoption of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) across 71 countries. Using an ordinal logit model, we examine how individual financial access, the ownership of credit cards, financing accessibility by firms, offshore loans, financial sanctions, and the ownership structure of financial institutions influence the probability of CBDC adoption in nations. These findings reveal that nations facing financial sanctions and those with substantial offshore bank loans are more inclined to adopt CBDCs. Furthermore, a significant relationship is observed in countries where many people have restricted financial access, indicating heightened interest in CBDC adoption. Interestingly, no statistically significant relationship was found between the adoption of CBDCs and the percentage of foreign-owned banks in each country. The results show that countries with low financial stability and financial access adopt CBDCs faster. This study expands our knowledge of how a nation’s financial situation influences its adoption of CBDCs. The results provide important and relevant insights into the current discussion of the direction of global finance.

The Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector is critical pillars of the Indonesian economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on MSMEs. The existence of activity violation policies, namely lockdown and social distancing, needs to be anticipated by MSME actors because it has changed consumer behavior and business competition. Digital transformation is a solution for MSMEs to survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of access to finance on MSME performance moderated by digitalization. This study utilized 83 MSMEs as a sample. Data was collected by distributing questionnaires to MSME owners who were selected as research samples. Data analysis was performed using the Moderated Regression Analysis (MRA) method. The results of the study indicated that digitization significantly strengthens the relationship between financial access and MSME performance. For MSME actors, digitization will also make it simpler to introduce products, boost turnover, and assist with recording and producing financial reports.

Financial inclusion continues to be a significant challenge in Nigeria since many Nigerians are excluded from the financial ecosystem. This article investigates the impact of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) on digital financial inclusion using a quantitative research design and data collected from Nigerians. This was a correlational quantitative research study using a survey questionnaire distributed to 500 members of the Nigerian public using the eNaira. The results indicate that CBDC has a positive impact on digital financial inclusion; it facilitates improved access to financial services, reduces transaction costs, increases the number of banked members of the population, and enhances the efficiency of digital payments. This study concludes that CBDC is essential to improving financial inclusion in Nigeria. Based on these findings, it is recommended that policymakers in Nigeria continue to promote and prioritize the adoption of CBDC. Therefore, future research could explore the impact of CBDC on other aspects of financial inclusion beyond those explored in this study. For example, the research could be conducted to examine how CBDC impacts access to credit or explore the potential impact of CBDC on financial stability and monetary policy.

This study aims to estimate the financial inclusion (FI) index in Low- Income and Lower-Middle- Income (LLMI) Countries. The study used the Principal Component Analysis technique and Euclidean Distance Method to estimate the FI index for 39 LLMI countries over 11 years, from 2010 to 2020. For constructing the index, this study used four dimensions, i.e., “financial access, financial usage, infrastructure & communication technology, and banking cost.” These findings suggest that the exploitation of FI is the reason behind the low FI level in LLMI countries. Moreover, these countries have a higher banking costs compared to high-income countries. Therefore, financial inconsistency and banking competition hinder achieving an ideal FI level. This study also discusses policy recommendations for optimal FI in LLMI countries. From a policy perspective, strong regulation for FI is necessary for countries with unstable economic conditions, such as Ghana, which has an unsuitable economic condition to enhance FI. To increase the level of FI, the government must develop a strategic framework to improve FI. FI policy must focus on initiating, monitoring, and developing FI in the country.

Orientation: Among the numerous factors affecting small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) ability to access funding, financial literacy or the lack thereof continues to rank high. The below-average levels of financial literacy among entrepreneurs inevitably restrict their access to finance, thereby adding to the already soaring rate of small business failure. Research purpose: The main research objective of this article is to determine the underlying financial literacy-financial access relationship among SMEs in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa. Motivation of the study: Understanding the relationship between financial literacy and financial access among small businesses is imperative as they are key players in economic development. Empirical literature outlining this relationship is sparse. Therefore, the study made an original empirical contribution to the financial literacy-financial access nexus in the metropolitan. Research design, approach and method: A quantitative descriptive research design was followed. The survey method was used to gather data, where structured questionnaires were distributed to the respondents. The study considered a targeted population of 5609 registered SMEs in Ekurhuleni with a sample size of 384 prospective participants. A total of 310 responses were obtained from the owners and managers of SMEs in the municipality. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to compute all statitical analyses for the study. Descriptive statistics were used to establish the SMEs’ financial literacy and financial access relationship. Data were analysed using factor analysis, regression analysis and correlation analysis. Main findings: Entrepreneurs in Ekurhuleni were found to have a limited understanding of basic financial concepts implying low levels of financial knowledge. Additionally, the study established that financial access was significantly challenging for most SMEs. The findings further revealed a positive relationship between financial literacy and financial access. Practical managerial/ implications: The knowledge from this article may assist entrepreneurs and financial institutions in bridging the financial literacy gap, thereby increasing the likelihood of accessing funding by SMEs. It may also assist in influencing the development and implementation of micro and macroeconomics policies to raise financial literacy levels and leniency from financing sources towards SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to analyze significant variables that permit us to ascertain the profitability of Bangladeshi Shariah-based banks. In doing so, two profitability measurements, namely, return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), have been used as dependent variables, while capital adequacy, asset management quality, operational efficiency, credit risk, liquidity, and the size of the bank have been considered as bank-specific independent variables. In addition, the rate of interest, inflation, and GDP growth rate have also been taken as macroeconomic independent variables. This study examined panel data of eight Shariah-based Islamic banks over a thirteen-year period spanning from 2010 to 2022, applying different kinds of linear regression models, including pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects, and random effects. Subsequently, the generalized method of moments (GMM) approach is also applied to assess the robustness of the findings. The results revealed that the profitability of Bangladeshi Shariah-based Islamic banks is positively associated with asset management quality, liquidity, and credit risk. In contrast, capital adequacy, operational efficiency, and bank size are negatively correlated with the bank’s profitability. Concerning the macroeconomic factors, the findings indicated a notable positive correlation between the profitability of Shariah-based banks in Bangladesh and both the inflation rate and the interest rate spread. However, this study has also found that the profitability of the sample banks of Bangladesh is not significantly influenced by GDP growth. By providing fresh empirical data, the current research aimed to close a significant vacuum in the body of knowledge on banks and provide important insights for policymakers, managers, and other stakeholders by focusing on particular bank-specific and macroeconomic aspects that influence the profitability of Shariah-based Islamic banks in Bangladesh.

Despite the expansion of financial institutions and the proliferation of mobile financial services, reaching the unbanked and bringing them under formal financial services has become a policy concern in many developing countries. Due to the lack of financial accounts, unbanked people prefer informal, risky, and inconvenient mechanisms for receiving, sending, and transferring money. Previous studies rely much on common interventions like no account maintenance and opening fees, easy documentation processes, and money subsidies for opening financial accounts. This study aims to examine the impact of the motivational workshop on opening savings accounts through causality among the unbanked people in a setting where the respondents are unbanked despite having all the requirements and many institutional offers to open savings accounts. We encouraged the unbanked people through a one-hour-long motivational workshop to open savings accounts. Based on our cross-sectional data and randomized controlled trial experiment among the 505 unbanked rural people at Dhubil union under Sirajganj in Bangladesh, we have evidence that motivational workshop positively impacts opening accounts by 32.33 percent. However, the account opening rate differs in terms of respondent’s preference for financial institutions. Our study also finds that unbanked people have the highest preference for mobile financial services for opening accounts resulting in 15.33 percent. The result of this study has some policy implications for adopting effective strategies for universal financial access in many developing countries.

This study develops a framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and focuses on perceived behavioral control. The Theory of Planned Behavior is extended in this research by proposing that tax policy and financial access are predictors of Generation Z's entrepreneurial intention and behavior. Based on the researcher's knowledge, tax policy and financial access have never been studied concurrently for their impact on entrepreneurial behavior in Indonesia. The model was tested empirically on 500 entrepreneurial students from four public universities in Indonesia. Questionnaire surveys were administered to respondents identified using the random purposive sampling technique. Primary data were processed according to path analysis procedures using SPSS 25. The Theory of Planned Behavior is supported by the seven hypotheses stated in this study. Tax policies and financial access directly affect entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial behavior. Entrepreneurial intentions can also mediate the impact of tax policy and financial access on entrepreneurial behavior.

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis on peer-to-peer lending literature published in Scopus indexed journals from an economic and business perspective. The data were processed and analyzed using VOSviewer software. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that conducts a bibliometric analysis of the peer-to-peer lending literature using VOSviewer. The results of study showed the most popular authors, countries, organizations and keywords. Moreover, this study also discovered trending topics from recent publications. A direct benefit of this study is to provide input for stakeholders, businessmen and investors to identify important issues regarding peer-to-peer lending and directions for further researchers.

Purpose — To analyze the impact of financial inclusion toward income distribution inequality in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Research method — The analysis method in this paper is panel regression model. This methodology is used to avoid bias specifications in the model. This paper applied three dimensions of financial which are financial penetration, access to financial services and use of financial services. The data was taken from the Financial Services Authority, Central Bank of Indonesia and the Central Statistics Agency. The data was time series from 2010-2017 and cross section from 9 rural and urban in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Result — The result showed that each district in South Sumatera has divergent degree of financial inclusion index. The degree of financial inclusion index in city area has a relatively higher financial index than hinterland areas. Based on the result of estimations, the impact of financial inclusion index on income inequality is positive and significant. This evidence proved that financial inclusion does not reduce income inequality in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Recommendation — Financial institutions are more motivated to lend to groups like farmers, the impoverished, and small and micro businesses. It is vital for the government to provide more fair financial services amongst regencies and cities.

Formal financial intermediation and the financial dimensions which include financial efficiency, financial access and financial stability can be tools that can be useful in providing the much needed finance for households and businesses. The objective of this article is to examine the causal relationship between financial dimension in the financial intermediation setting and poverty. This study used annual data from 2004 to 2018 for a panel of selected developing countries. The pooled mean group estimator in a panel ARDL framework was employed to examine the causal relationship between financial dimensions and poverty. Results revealed a long run causal relationship between the financial dimensions and poverty with no significant short run causal relationships. Furthermore, the study highlights the great importance of multidimensionality of poverty and that how poverty is measured is significant to the nature of the causal links with financial dimensions. The findings are expected to encourage developing countries to particularly pay attention to how poverty is measured and how different financial dimensions are important for an inclusive financial system.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors such as access to finance, legal constraints, and entrepreneurial skill on women's participation in business activities. The mediating effects of self-leadership were also established as an influence on women's participation in business activities. Moreover, the study examined the moderating effect of education among self-leadership and participation of women in entrepreneurial activities. The study selected a quantitative method and structured questionnaire for the data collection. The study found a significant relationship of the effect of access to finance, legal constraints, and entrepreneurial skill with women's participation in entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, the study found a significant mediating effect of self-leadership between factors and women's participation in entrepreneurial activities as well as a significant moderating effect of education between self-leadership and participation of women in entrepreneurial activities. The study suggests that the government and other institutions should take the initiative in women's entrepreneurship that affects women's self-leadership skills. The policymakers should pay attention to the financial concerns of women in business activities.

Abstract. The processes of intellectualization and informatization of society have necessitated the development and application of screen forms of automated information systems in various fields by the subjects of the national economy for sustainable growth and economic development. The article is devoted to the development of screen forms, which are designed to organize interaction between users of automated financial monitoring systems and relevant modules for verifying financial transactions, entering regulatory information, working with variable-intermediate and variable effective, serve as a starting point for simulation of automated financial monitoring. The created screen forms with the help of the Bizagi Studio program reflect a prototype of the automated system of the bank’s business process, which contains the relevant attributes that are subject to verification in the financial monitoring procedure. The Bank’s Clients directory is a key form. A directory «Constituent Documents» has been created for legal entities. Financial documents of individuals are entered in the appropriate forms («Financial documents», «Passport data»). All client transactions are generated in the «Array of transactions» screen form. Information on customer accounts is stored in the appropriate form «Customer Accounts». Regulatory information on the types of banking products is entered in the directory «Product Category», and on the types of transactions — in the directory «Types of transactions», on the types of bank customers — in the directory «Types of customers», on the types of accounts — in the directory of the same name. It is also possible to organize data on the currencies with which the bank works in a directory «Currencies». Created on-screen forms for working with variable-intermediate information, in which part of the information is entered using calculations of the system’s business logic, and part with the user, and the variable, which reflects the results of inspections, allowed simulations using automated financial transactions of bank customers. The graphic map of the business process was created in the software product «Bizagi Studio» using the component «Model Process». Keywords: economic development policy, financial access, access to banking, financial monitoring, normative and reference information, bank clients, screen forms, automated financial monitoring system. JEL Classification G14, G18, G21, O16, P17 Formulas: 0; fig.: 13; tabl.: 0; bibl.: 26.

The study examines the effectiveness of ICT diffusion and financial development in reducing the severity and intensity of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using data from the World Development Indicators and the Global Consumption and Income Project (1980–2019), we provide evidence, robust to several specifications from the dynamic system GMM and the panel corrected standard errors estimation techniques, to show that, compared to financial access, ICT usage, and ICT access, ICT skills is remarkable in reducing both the severity and intensity of poverty. The results further revealed that, though ICT skills reduce poverty, the effect is more pronounced in the presence of enhanced financial development. Policy recommendations are provided in line with the region's green growth agenda and technological progress.

Economic growth in Indonesia is growing rapidly, this further exacerbates the current environmental conditions which are characterized by high levels of pollution, greenhouse gas effects, global warming and the threat of ecosystem extinction. The emergence of various environmental problems that occur today are caused by various sectors, one of which is the industrial sector. As the largest contributor to GDP in Indonesia, the industrial sector which is an IDX listing company has an obligation to have a sustainability report where this report describes economic, social and environmental activities. This sustainability report can provide information symmetry that can be considered by third parties, both financial institutions and investors. This sustainability report must have external quality and assurance so that it is not just a disclosure but can be a reliable sustainability report. Therefore, this study has an aim to analyze the relationship between the sustainability reports quality, the external assurance quality, usage of external assurance, environmental performance and financial access. The sample population are non-financial sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange and PROPER during the 2014-2019 period. The analytical method used is panel data regression analysis using STATA.The result of this study found a significant strongly relationship between environmental performance and the quality of sustainability report disclosures on the company's financial access. In contrast, there is an insignificant effect between the quality of external assurance sustainability report disclosure on the financial access of the main sector and manufacturing companies.

The dwindling growth of small businesses and their rate of failure in South Africa has been traced to poor financing. Thus, the factors affecting the financial sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises in South Africa are examined in this study. Using purposive sampling, data were collected from 310 respondents, however six were incorrectly completed. The analysis was based on data collected from 304 respondents which cut across owners and/or managers from small and medium construction, manufacturing, retail, and agricultural enterprises. A quantitative research design that falls under the positivist paradigm was used. Specifically, through a descriptive and multivariate regression analysis, it was found that financial awareness, budgeting, accounting skills, and access to finance have positive and significant effects on the financial sustainability of SMEs with all the variables, having 0.005 probability values, respectively. Out of all the variables examined, budgeting and access to finance have the largest absolute values of 0.425 and 0.373, respectively. Thus, it was concluded that workshops, training, and seminars to improve the financial literacy of small and medium enterprises should be organised. This will improve owner’s ability to deploy the accounting and budgeting skills and they will be exposed to meeting loan criteria and conditions from financial institutions. Also, adequate funds should be allocated to cater for the regular training and development of small business owners using the services of financial experts.

Orientation: Access to and use of formal finance can be an epitome for poverty reduction in developing and transitional economies. Most of these economies experienced great growth in gross domestic product (GDP) compounded with exploding inequality, including racial wealth gaps, increasing starvation, exorbitant health and housing costs. Research purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between financial intermediation and poverty within the context of financial dimensions of financial access, financial efficiency and financial stability. Motivation for the study: Previous literature focuses mainly on the role of financial development in poverty reduction, with a dearth of literature on the other financial dimensions of financial access, financial efficiency and financial stability in reducing poverty. Research approach/design and method: A quantitative approach was used in this study through econometric analysis of the data. A panel data analysis was used for a panel of 35 developing countries, mainly in Africa. The panel heterogeneous estimation method of pooled mean group was employed in a panel autoregressive distributed lags setting for this article Main findings: Financial intermediation, including the other financial dimensions, reduces poverty. The effect of the financial dimensions depended on how poverty is measured. Practical/managerial implications: Policymakers and development agencies should take note of poverty measurement in addressing poverty challenges. Distorted understanding of poverty will result in distorted policies, which yield little or no results for the effective use of formal finance to reduce poverty. Contribution/value-add: Other financial dimensions of the formal financial sector can be considered for the use in poverty reduction strategies.

The aim of this research is to answer to the question of whether immigrants’ inflow might influence financial markets. The qualitative analyses of descriptive statistics and immigrants’ nationality allowed us to ascertain which the most preferred immigrants’ destinations are across the European countries, but also to get a picture of the countries from which most immigrants come from. Then, using annual data ranging from 1998 to 2014 for 20 European countries, a three-fold analysis was performed as to unveil complementary statistical links between immigrants’ inflow and several financial sector specific indicators. The analysis comprehensively considered the main components of the financial sector, namely the banking sector, the insurance one, the capital market and private pensions. First we relied on the correlation and causality approach, complemented by the use of a panel regression with fixed effects. According to the country by country investigation, the information provided by the descriptive statistics, by the causality test and by the size of the fixed effects estimated through panel regressions shows that Germany clearly detaches itself among the other European countries considered. This most wanted destination among European countries and the second most preferred in the world, records the most pronounced and persistent influence of the number of immigrants on several financial sector features. From the standpoint of the financial sector, the most influenced by immigrants’ inflow, it has been found that bank specific variables are on the top. This result confirms both economic intuition and practice, because immigrants are more prone to use basic banking services rather than invest on the capital market or sign life and non-life insurance contracts.

This paper addresses the implementation of the Kawasan Mandiri Pangan (KMP) program, a microfinance program for farmer groups, assessing whether the program affects farmers’ decisions concerning production, marketing, and consumption or not, and its impacts on household food security along three dimensions: food availability, food access, and food utilization. Based on a qualitative and theory of change mixed-methods analysis, which uses interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs), this research sheds light on the program’s success among two groups of farmers. Both groups experienced improved productivity and increased food availability, but only one group sustained the program. The results indicate that the program has not affected the commercialization of any particular crop, where the crop’s best selling price, relationships, and commitments are factors that affect the farmers’ marketing decisions. Other findings show how food access at the household level increased when the crop’s selling price was reasonable, while food utilization was influenced predominantly by local wisdom. Taken together, the research findings highlight the importance of the capability of the management, the commitment of the members, and the supervision of the agricultural extension agents. There is a need for a locally owned enterprise to absorb agricultural products and maintain the selling price of crops, which is the primary driver of food accessibility and utilization at the household level.

Using a database of 23,000 firms in 45 economies, we test the quantitative importance of access to finance and access to public and private credit for the determination of misallocation. We first derive measures of factor market and size distortions, and then use these measures within a regression framework to test the significance of self-declared access-to-finance obstacles as well as the effect of access to a credit line issued by either a government-owned or private bank. We find that access-to-finance obstacles and private credit increase the dispersion of distortions. Public credit has a very small effect. For firms that do not face financial obstacles, public credit increases the dispersion of distortions; for firms that face financial obstacles, it slightly decreases dispersion. Public credit does not appear to compensate for the distortions that exist in private credit markets. Quantitatively, however, financial variables explain a very small part of the dispersion of factor market and size distortions.

This paper empirically investigates the effects of remittances on access to financial services in 26 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2004–2015. We find that remittances have a significantly positive impact on financial access in Sub-Saharan Africa. This finding remains true in least squares regressions and with Arellano-Bond Dynamic Panel Estimation that accounts for the endogenous relationship between remittances and financial access and that controls for any bias arising from the lagged dependent variables, as well as using an alternative measure of financial access.

Access to basic financial services is one possible path leading to a better life for the poor. This is endorsed by SADC governments, and various strategies were in the past decade implemented to advance financial access. South Africa was particularly successful in enhancing access via its government-incentivised Mzansi entry-level bank account. This study researches what happened in the other SADC countries and specifically the role governments played in lifting the barriers to access to and use of formal banking services. It is concluded that no other SADC country was as successful as South Africa.

The unorganised sector is no more considered as a residual one in the developing and in the underdeveloped countries; rather it is considered as a common component of such economies. This sector is playing an important role in those countries both in terms of its contribution to the national income and employment generation. However, despite its importance, the enterprises in this sector are facing various problems. A large segment of enterprises state non-accessibility to credit is the most important problem faced by them. Moreover, existing reports and literature states that the formal financial institutions are not interested to deal with the unorganised enterprises. As a result, they have to depend on the informal sources of credit. This present paper based on secondary data analyses the various characteristics of unorganised manufacturing enterprises in Assam and their accessibility to credit. Results indicate that the average amount of outstanding loan per unorganised manufacturing enterprise in Assam is smaller than that of all-India average. Again, the enterprises in the rural areas are more dependent on the non-institutional sources of credit when compared to those in the urban areas. Similarly, the smaller enterprises have limited access to credit from the formal financial institutions as compared to the larger enterprises.

Las remesas enviadas por los migrantes en Estados Unidos a sus familiares en América Latina están situadas fuera de las categorías ‘tradicionales’ de espacio. No sólo atraviesan diferentes espacios geográficos más allá de los Estados nación, sino que también se mueven en gran parte fuera de los espacios formales de las instituciones bancarias. Tomando el ejemplo de los mercados financieros en México y en base a estudios recientes sobre el impacto de las remesas en el sector financiero, este artículo explora en qué forma las remesas tienen el potencial de transformar espacios locales y de reducir algunas de las fallas de mercado que prevalecen ante todo en los mercados financieros rurales. Abstract Remittances, the money sent by migrants to their families back home, are situated outside ‘traditional’ categories of space in several ways. Not only do these smallscale financial transactions span the transnational space beyond the nation-state; they also move largely outside the institutional spaces of the formal banking sector. Taking the case of financial markets in Mexico and building on recent empirical findings on the impact of migrants’ remittances on the financial sector of the receiving countries, this article explores how remittances may lead to a transformation of local spaces by reducing some of the market failures that prevail, especially in rural financial markets.

For a common small- to medium-sized fish farm in an agricultural-based economy, monitoring costs is very important, since financial constraints are always a problem for these farmers. This will be thus easier if the farmers can get access to external funds. This paper used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the technical efficiency, cost efficiency and allocative efficiency of 639 fish farms in the Red River Delta (RRD) in Vietnam in 2018 to see how fish farmers control their costs and if financial access can really help in this matter. We found that these fish farms were very inefficient, meaning that they did not succeed in monitoring and allocating their costs and resources. Among the factors that could improve their efficiency, we found that developing the rural banking system to provide more financial access for RRD fish farms is an important solution.

Banking Access is a broad concept that examines issues such as physical availability of banking services for people and businesses, terms and conditions and ease of access to these services, diversity of services and financial regulatory scope .In this paper, based on global data and indicators, we survey the status of countries in the Middle East and North Africa in terms of various Banking Development indicators. At the end, we design and calculate a composite index to rank and compare their banking access.The results indicate an acceptable and medium situation of Iran among MENA countries and above the average position of MENA countries in the world.

The unorganised sector is no more considered as a residual one in the developing and in the underdeveloped countries; rather it is considered as a common component of such economies. This sector is playing an important role in those countries both in terms of its contribution to the national income and employment generation. However, despite its importance, the enterprises in this sector are facing various problems. A large segment of enterprises state non-accessibility to credit is the most important problem faced by them. Moreover, existing reports and literature states that the formal financial institutions are not interested to deal with the unorganised enterprises. As a result, they have to depend on the informal sources of credit. This present paper based on secondary data analyses the various characteristics of unorganised manufacturing enterprises in Assam and their accessibility to credit. Results indicate that the average amount of outstanding loan per unorganised manufacturing enterprise in Assam is smaller than that of all-India average. Again, the enterprises in the rural areas are more dependent on the non-institutional sources of credit when compared to those in the urban areas. Similarly, the smaller enterprises have limited access to credit from the formal financial institutions as compared to the larger enterprises.Â

How we think about poverty is colored by how we measure it. For economists, that often means seeing poverty through quantities measured in large, representative surveys. The surveys give a comprehensive view, but favor breadth over depth. Typical economic surveys are limited in their ability to tease out informal activity, and, while they capture yearly sums, they offer little about how the year was actually lived by families. Year-long financial diaries provide a complementary way of seeing poverty, with a focus on week by week choices and challenges. The result is a re-framing of poverty and its relationship to money, calling for greater attention to financial access and a broader notion of how finance matters.

With increasing emphasis being placed on professionalism and a self-sustaining financial model, microfinance institutions are joining forces in national associations. This research explores the stated goals of these associations and the challenges they face in implementation, through content analysis and case studies of Sri Lanka and Nepal. It finds that microfinance associations are not focused solely on representing and advocating for the interests of their members. Rather, this function is often combined or even overshadowed by important capacity building services. In some cases, associations are even filling gaps in formal regulatory oversight. At the same time, they face challenges of institutionalization and heterogeneous membership.