Publications

Nov 26, 2022

Market Bite Iraq: Economic Recovery Creates Opportunity to Invest in Small and Medium Businesses

This report shares the results of an IFC survey of 827 SMEs in Iraq, focusing on the financial health and access to finance for SMEs.

Sep 27, 2022

Banking on SMEs: Driving Growth, Creating Jobs

This report shows GSMEF's use of Blended Finance financial instruments and targeted Advisory Services to encourage client banks to increase their SME lending.

English | 68 pages | 2022 IFC

Jul 28, 2022

IFC - ICMA Green, Social, and Sustainability Bonds Training

IFC - ICMA Green, Social, and Sustainability Bonds Training

Jul 11, 2022

Women and Online Learning in Emerging Markets

This report shows how online platforms can support women in accessing job relevant courses and credentials to advance their employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

English |145 pages | 2022 IFC

Jun 23, 2022

Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes

The market for alternative asset classes is examined in a joint study by IFC, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership.

Jun 8, 2022

Emerging Market Green Bonds

The latest developments in emerging market and developing economy green bonds are outlined by IFC in a report with Amundi, a leading European asset manager.

Jun 1, 2022

Emerging Market Real Economy Sustainable Bonds

Current and Potential Sustainable Bond Issuance for: Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa in the sectors of power, transport, agribusiness

May 15, 2022

Creating Markets in Honduras: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

The Honduras Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) provides IFC & World Bank analysis of growth and investment opportunities, constraints, & policy recommendations.

English | 147 pages | 2022 IFC

Apr 7, 2022

Investor Guidelines for Responsible Investing in Digital Financial Services (2022)

The Guidelines for “Investing in Responsible Digital Financial Services” (Investor Guidelines) strive to proactively implement evolving standards of the G20 High Level Principles for Digital Financial Inclusion (G20 HLPs) which was launched in 2016 with China as holder of the G20 Presidency. The G20 HLPs were developed by a team of leading policy experts and industry practitioners, given increased opportunities and evolving risks emerging in digital financial services – for customers, sectors and markets across the globe. The G20 HLPs represents the most comprehensive standards that are being implemented at the national policy levels to advance the growth of digital financial inclusion. Hence, the objective of the Investor Guidelines is to promote responsible DFS investments and to contribute to broader financial inclusion and sustainable development. This summary update provides an overview of the Guidelines for Responsible Investing in Digital Financial Services (“Investor Guidelines”), including their definitions, examples of potential actions and selected industry references.

Mar 30, 2022

Green Bond Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Issuing a Green Bond

Practical and straightforward guidance for financial institutions in emerging markets to prepare and execute a successful green bond issue.

English | 45 pages | 2022 IFC

Feb 17, 2022

Creating Markets in Uganda: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

The Uganda Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) provides IFC & World Bank analysis of growth and investment opportunities, constraints, & policy recommendations.

English | 95 pages | 2022 IFC

Jan 28, 2022

Guidelines for Blue Finance

This document identifies eligible blue project categories to guide IFC’s investments to support the blue economy, in line with the Green Bond Principles and Green Loan Principles. The market has been seeking guidance on project eligibility criteria, translating general Blue Economy Financing Principles, such as the Sustainable Blue Economy Principles and the Sustainable Ocean Principles, towards guidelines for blue bond issuances and blue lending.

Jan 18, 2022

Sustainability-Linked Finance—Mobilizing Capital for Sustainability in Emerging Markets

Sustainability-linked finance is designed to incentivize the borrower’s achievement of environmental, social, or governance targets through pricing incentives. Launched in 2017, it has now become the fastest-growing sustainable finance instrument, with over $809 billion issued to date in sustainability-linked loans and bonds. Yet these instruments are still nascent in emerging markets, which represent only 5 percent of total issuance to date. This note shares examples of recent sustainability-linked financing, including several involving IFC in various roles, to highlight how investors can utilize these new instruments in emerging markets and mitigate greenwashing risks.

English | 8 Pages—January—Note 110 | IFC 2022

Jan 13, 2022

Banking on FinTech in Emerging Markets

Despite near-universal access to financial services in advanced economies, financial exclusion is stubbornly persistent in many emerging markets, leaving huge swaths of low-income populations unbanked or underbanked. FinTech companies, which apply innovative technologies to deliver such services in new ways, have begun to tap into the enormous unmet demand that this represents. These companies are starting to thrive in emerging markets, though regulatory issues, particularly weak consumer protection measures, remain to be resolved in many countries. If these can be overcome, and more progress toward universal access to digital infrastructure can be made, FinTechs will continue to scale and spread.

English | 8 Pages—January—Note 109 | IFC 2022

Dec 22, 2021

Business Case Update 4 Lower NPLs for Women Owned SMEs

IFC’s annual survey of its banking clients continues to provide insight into the potential size and financial performance of women-owned small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) and why financial institutions should pay greater attention to this segment.

Dec 6, 2021

Creating Markets in Madagascar: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

Madagascar CPSD examines inclusive growth, job creation, and economic recovery from COVID-19 through private sector policy reforms and investments.

English - 125 pages | French - 142 pages | 2021 IFC

Oct 29, 2021

Accelerating Sustainable Finance Together: Global Progress Report of the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network

The third SBFN Global Progress Report captures the significant increase in collective efforts across all parts of the financial sector, and between regulators and industry, to develop shared enabling frameworks for sustainable finance.

116 pages | © October 2021 IFC | Complimentary

Oct 25, 2021

Building Resilience Through Digital Financial Services

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the important role digital financial services (DFS) can play in reducing disruptions to supply chains, maintaining economic activity, supporting social transfers and ensuring safe transactions while maintaining social distancing. In these challenging times, IFC’s DFS advisory has worked with clients to build resilience and capacity through the Covid-19 crisis while designing, building and developing innovative business models for financial inclusion. This DFS market research series endeavors to share the insights gathered through this work.

Oct 19, 2021

The Emergence of New Data Ecosystems in Financial Services

This paper provides insights into recent business practices in Southeast Asia and market participants’ views on policy and regulation issues. The research is based on a survey of data issuers, intermediaries, and users (primarily lenders). It focuses on understanding the role of new and alternative data and data providers in making decisions about credit. Some of these new forms of data—including social media data, cell phone data, and data generated from business processes, transactional data, online activity, and others—are being harnessed to support credit-granting decisions. Naturally, a greater number of players now collect, store, handle, and disseminate data relevant for credit-granting purposes, an area that was previously the purview of credit bureaus and credit registries.

Oct 8, 2021

Creating Markets in Haiti: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

The Haiti Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) provides IFC & World Bank analysis of growth and investment opportunities, constraints, & policy recommendations.

English | 137 pages | 2021 IFC

Sep 13, 2021

Creating Markets in Ecuador: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

The Ecuador Country Private Sector Diagnostic provides IFC & World Bank analysis of private investment opportunities, constraints, and policy recommendations.

English | 196 pages | 2021 IFC

Sep 9, 2021

Creating Markets in Vietnam: Country Private Sector Diagnostic

The Vietnam Country Private Sector Diagnostic provides IFC & World Bank analysis of private investment opportunities, constraints, and policy recommendations.

English | 123 pages | 2021 IFC

Aug 2, 2021

Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020

A comprehensive IFC assessment of the global impact investing market with estimates of market size, including publicly and privately managed impact assets.

Jul 2, 2021

Blended Concessional Finance—The Benefits of Transparency and Access

Blended concessional finance, the combination of commercial finance from the private sector and development finance institutions (DFIs) with concessional finance from public and other sources, is increasingly being used by DFIs to support developmentally important projects where normal DFI or commercial finance is not available because of the high risks involved.

English | 8 pages—July—Note 105 | IFC 2021

May 27, 2021

Small Business, Big Growth: How Investing in SMEs Creates Jobs

This report aims to capture the key constraints that SMEs typically confront and provide a methodology better suited to measuring the job creation effects of SME finance initiatives by DFIs like IFC.

English | 102 pages | IFC 2021