While mobile phones are making significant inroads in many developing countries, little is known about the institutional drivers, policy barriers and industry challenges that affect their use for business growth of micro- enterprises. The authors address this gap. After conducting...

Purpose: A review of literature has documented that accessing formal credit and other banking services has always been a crucial challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The alternative, therefore, tends to be informal channels. However, the credit constraint vis-à-vis informal...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the small, women micro-entrepreneur dominated and heterogeneity limitations of the Atmadjaet al.(2016) study. The sample is much larger, includes more men and is more heterogeneous, which allows deeper insights and more meaningful explanation of...

Vietnam is now widely regarded as a rising economic star and the next economic dragon of Asia. Its banking system has played a key role in this stellar economic performance. Since 1990, Vietnam's banking system has undergone significant changes which saw its composition transformed from being...

Studies on bank profitability vis-à-vis market power and efficiency span a number of years, many countries, regions and methods. Yet, the experiences of the Pacific's small states -- where foreign banks are widespread and bank profits relatively high -- remain unknown, leaving policy-makers...

This article investigates the determinants of Net Interest Margins (NIM) of banks in Fiji, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) in the South Pacific, over the period 2000--2010. Based mainly on the Ho and Saunders’ (1981) dealership model and extensions thereto, this study uses a number of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of microfinance on women-owned microenterprises’ (WMEs) performance in Indonesia. It especially observes how financial, human and social capital influences performance of enterprises. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected...

This study fills a huge gap in literature by providing some evidence on the level and determinants of bank efficiency in a Pacific island context. DEA results show that overall efficiency levels may be lower than in Australia, the home country of major banks. Dynamic GMM and panel data results...