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December 2012

Revolving Credit and Term Loans as Credit Alternatives to Firms in Mexico: When and for what purpose?

Sirenia Vazquez's picture

Credit to firms can be classified in two categories: revolving credit lines and term loans. Revolving credit lines offer borrowers the option to draw funds up to a limit, repay and redraw them as they see fit. In term loans, borrowers usually make a single draw of funds and commit to pay a fixed amount periodically. Both types of credit have pros and cons. However, it is not clear what determines whether a firm obtains a revolving credit or a term loan. In particular, two interesting questions arise. First, what is the relationship between the type of credit to firms and the economic cycle? Second, are there any differences between those types of loans in terms of pricing? In a recently released paper, I explore these questions for Mexican firms, using credit level information from Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) for the period of 2001-2012.

New, Individual-Level Data on Financial Inclusion Shows What Drives Ownership and Use of Financial Inclusion

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt's picture

Who uses formal financial services? What policies are associated with greater use of accounts among the poor and rural residents? And why do certain segments of the population remain unbanked? Is it by choice or is it due to barriers such as high costs or large distances to the nearest bank branch? In a new paper we co-authored with Franklin Allen and Sole Martinez Peria, we explore these questions using an exciting new micro-dataset from the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database. This dataset, based on interviews with over 150,000 adults in 148 countries, lets us identify account ownership, the use of an account to save, and whether an account is used frequently, defined as three of more withdrawals per month. (For a detailed description of the data, see our earlier paper, Demirguc-Kunt and Klapper, 2012). Figure 1 shows summary statistics of our financial inclusion measures.

Bank Regulation and Supervision: Insights from a New World Bank Dataset

Martin Cihak's picture

Bank regulation and supervision has become subject of vigorous debates during the global financial crisis. Many observers pointed out weaknesses in regulation and supervision in the run-up to the crisis (see, for example, Caprio, Demirguc-Kunt and Kane, 2010, Dan 2010, Levine 2010, and Barth, Caprio, and Levine 2012). The crisis prompted policymakers to consider changes in regulation and supervision. But much of the policy discussions focused on a small number of major (and mostly high-income) economies. And despite the high degree of interest in the global regulatory framework, there has been a surprising lack of consistent and up-to-date information on the national regulatory and supervisory approaches pursued in individual countries around the world during the crisis. This lack of information led to important gaps in understanding what works in regulation and supervision and what does not.