This article offers a new method for the evaluation of financial institutions, one that combines socioeconomic survey data with appropriate accounting standards. A government-operated development bank in Thailand is found to be offering a risk-contingency or insurance system while being...

The microfinance sector is an important ingredient in the process of global integration of the financial markets. The rapid development of the microfinance sector in many developing countries motivated prominent donors to develop systems for standardised and comparable reporting of financial and...

The establishment of formal agricultural credit systems in most developing countries in recent decades has been motivated by the belief that widespread shortages of short- and long-term finance have arrested agricultural growth and development. The lack of affordable formal credit has been...

Although governments have traditionally used subsidized credit programs to promote agricultural growth, this approach has generally failed to improve incomes and alleviate poverty in rural areas. It has also led to the mistaken belief that rural credit programs cannot be profitable. A new...

Measuring the performance of providers of financial services to poor individuals and to micro and small enterprises is a relatively new phenomenon, and the paper discusses the reasons for this. It is argued that using traditional financial ratios to assess performance of microfinance...

Providing affordable credit to the rural population has long been a prime component of development strategy. Governments and donors have sponsored and supported supply-led rural finance institutions both to improve growth and equity and to neutralize or mitigate urban-biased macroeconomic...

The Bank's draft Operational Directive on Financial Sector Operations requires the adjustment of financial statements in countries where the cumulative inflation rate over three years approaches or exceeds 100 percent. Financial statements in those countries are to follow the accounting...

This paper develops and tests a proposed methodology that puts forward a new integrated method for evaluating the performance of development finance institutions. This methodology applies assessment criteria that take into account both the social objective that the development finance...

Measuring the performance of providers of financial services to poor individuals and to micro and small enterprises is a relatively new phenomenon, and the paper discusses the reasons for this. It is argued that using traditional financial ratios to assess performance of microfinance...

The term "development finance institutions" (DFI) encompasses no only government development banks, but also nongovernmental micro-finance organizations, that match grants to attempt to promote community development, decentralization of power, and local empowerment. Measures of the social cost...