Fintech for Asian SMEs


Book Description

SMEs play a vital role in the Asian economy and comprise about 70% of the workforce and GDP in the region. To enhance productivity and ensure sustainable growth in Asia, it is vital to provide smooth financing to SMEs. Traditionally, commercial banks in Asia have regarded loans to SMEs as too risky relative to high transaction costs. However, new technologies including distributed ledger technology, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence are becoming a means of offering faster and more convenient and cost-effective financial services. The digital innovation could help SMEs to have easy access to finance in various routes. This book identifies and develops ideas on how to utilize new technologies to promote SME finance. It could encourage financial institutions and investors to develop new credit risk analysis tools, increase credit supply, and encourage sustainable growth for SME sectors. In addition, the book explores the ways policy makers and market participants could maximize the benefits while mitigating potential risks arising from the new digital era. The messages are important for the public and private sectors in Asia.




SME Finance in Asia


Book Description

This study gives an overview of recent innovations in the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Asia. While SMEs are an important contributor to employment and gross domestic product in Asia, they often face significant credit constraints. Recently, in the context of Asia's rapidly digitalizing economy, both incumbents and new entrants are developing innovative means of providing SME finance. This includes the growth of fintech credit, big tech providers, and new initiatives in trade finance.




Harnessing Technology for More Inclusive and Sustainable Finance in Asia and the Pacific


Book Description

Asia and the Pacific continues to embrace financial technology advances that are reshaping the traditional banking and financial services industry. This is being done through the digitalization, decentralization, and disintermediation of economic transactions. This report tracks the progress of financial innovation in the region, and discusses its implications for financial inclusion and stability as well as its challenges. It also identifies key policy issues for central banks, financial regulators, and international financial institutions.




Fintech Policy Tool Kit For Regulators and Policy Makers in Asia and the Pacific


Book Description

The rapid growth of fintech services in Asia and the Pacific can help countries leapfrog the challenges of traditional financial services infrastructure and dramatically increase access to financial services. An inclusive fintech ecosystem is essential to support economic growth, greater equality, and lower poverty levels. This publication details how to better understand and provide an enabling policy and regulatory environment to promote responsible fintech innovation, while ensuring consumer protection and supporting inclusive economic development in the region.




Entrepreneurial Finance, Innovation and Development


Book Description

Entrepreneurship is now unanimously considered a major engine for socio-economic development, mainly because it creates jobs and innovation. Governments around the world pay special attention to removing entrepreneurial barriers in order to support development via different policies, especially entrepreneurial finance. Developing, emerging and transition economies (DETEs) significantly differ from industrialized countries because of their specific conditions: institutions, infrastructure facilities, and bureaucratic procedures within the administrative system. Thus, firms and their entrepreneurs in and from DETEs may behave differently, particularly in terms of their financial strategies. Therefore, contextualizing is critical to better understand the relationship between entrepreneurial finance, innovation, and development in DETEs. This book provides a systematic and profound understanding of how finance, entrepreneurship, innovation, and their interactions contribute to economic development in DETEs, which cover a large number of countries in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The book mainly includes empirical studies and is divided into four parts. Part A includes four chapters which adopt a multinational approach to examine different sources and types of finance for entrepreneurship and small business in different groups of countries classified as DETEs. Part B also includes four chapters and focuses on entrepreneurial finance in specific countries belonging to the DETEs. Part C goes beyond the business scope of entrepreneurial finance and includes three chapters concerned with the relationship between finance, women's entrepreneurship, and poverty. Part D includes three chapters focusing on the comparison within developing countries as well as between developing and developed countries. This essential and comprehensive resource will find an audience amongst academics, students, educators, and practitioners, as well as policymakers and regulators.




Central Bank Digital Currency and Fintech in Asia


Book Description

This book provides a thorough introduction and historical overview of the principles and practices of digital currency and fintech in Asia. It covers the theory of central bank digital currency and examines regulatory aspects, economic digitalization, financial inclusion, and the role of SMEs. Selected case studies offer in-depth insights into recent fintech developments in major economies, including Australia; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; the People’s Republic of China; the Republic of Korea; and Thailand. The book also makes a valuable supplement for introductory courses on finance, governance, and economics, as it appeals to a broad range of readers, including university students, academics, finance practitioners, and policy makers.




Financial Digitalization and Its Implications for ASEAN+3 Regional Financial Stability


Book Description

This publication examines the impact of digitalization on the financial stability of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ASEAN+3). The region is a global leader in digital financial services, and economic and financial links among ASEAN+3 markets are growing. The publication discusses the opportunities and risks of digitalization, explores how to manage financial integration in the digital era, and identifies changes in regulations and supervision needed to reduce risk and successfully transform the traditional banking model.




FinTech Development for Financial Inclusiveness


Book Description

Financial technology (FinTech) and its related products are considered a major disruptive innovation in financial services, substantially elevating financial solutions and new business models. Resulting from the fusion of finance and smart mobile technology, this innovative technology requires additional investigation into its adoption, challenges, opportunities, and future directions so that we may understand and develop the technology to its full potential. FinTech Development for Financial Inclusiveness moves beyond the theoretical areas of FinTech to comprehensively explore the recent FinTech initiative scenarios with respect to processes, strategies, challenges, lessons learned, and outcomes within economic development as well as trade and investment. Covering a range of topics such as decentralized finance and global electronic commerce, it is ideal for industry professionals, business owners, consultants, practitioners, instructors, researchers, academicians, and students.




Regulating FinTech in Asia


Book Description

This book focuses on Fintech regulation in Asian, situating local developments in broader economic, regulatory and technological contexts. Over the last decade, Fintech – broadly defined as the use of new information technologies to help financial institutions and intermediaries compete in the marketplace – has disrupted the financial services sector. Like other 21st century technological developments, Fintech is a global phenomenon that plays out in local economic, political and regulatory contexts, and this dynamic interplay between global trends and local circumstances has created a complex and fast-changing landscape. Diverse stakeholders (most obviously incumbent financial service providers, tech start-ups and regulators) all pursue a competitive edge against a background of profound uncertainty about the future direction and possible effects of multiple emerging technologies. Compounding these difficulties are uncertainties surrounding regulatory responses. Policymakers often struggle to identify appropriate regulatory responses and increasingly turn to policy experimentation. Such issues add to the challenges for the various actors operating in the Fintech space. This situation is particularly fluid in Asia, since many jurisdictions are seeking to establish themselves as a regional hub for new financial services.




Routledge Handbook of Banking and Finance in Asia


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Banking and Finance in Asia brings together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge guide to Asia’s financial institutions, markets, and systems. Part I provides a country-by-country overview of banking and finance in East, Southeast, and South Asia, including examples from China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. Part II contains thematic chapters, covering topics such as commercial banking, development banking, infrastructure finance, stock markets, insurance, and sovereign wealth funds. It also includes examinations of banking regulation and supervision, and analyses of macroprudential regulation, capital flow management measures, and monetary policy. Finally, it provides new insights into topical issues such as SME, green, and Islamic finance. This handbook is an essential resource for scholars and students of Asian economics and finance and for professionals working in financial markets in Asia.