Financial Development
Introduction
The Financial Development Report measures and analyses the factors enabling the development of financial systems in a number of economies around the world. It aims to provide a comprehensive means for countries to benchmark various aspects of their financial systems and establish priorities for improvement. It is published annually so that countries can benchmark themselves and track their progress over time.
The Report does not attempt to inform current or short-term events, such as the latest developments affecting the eurozone. Rather, it aims to serve decision-makers in developing a balanced perspective as to which aspects of their country's financial system are most important in the long term and empirically calibrate this view relative to other countries.
The Report presents the rankings of the Financial Development Index, developed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the academic community, multilateral organizations and business leaders. It assembles a vast amount of data to create an assessment of the different aspects of complex financial systems, including the institutional environment, the business environment, financial stability, banks, capital markets, and overall capital availability and access.
Essay contributions elaborate on a variety of issues. In 2012, for example, the Report shared insights on:
- The debate about regulating traditional, as well as shadow banking systems in light of the financial crisis of 2007-2009
- The rise of emerging market banks, their importance as foreign investors, and how the global financial crisis has allowed these banks to increase their footprint at the regional level.
Data used in the calculation of the Index are fully annotated and clearly presented.
The Report appeals to a large audience such as policy-makers, business leaders, academics and different organizations of civil society. It aims to provide policy-makers with a balanced perspective on which aspects of their country’s financial system are most important and with the ability to empirically calibrate this view relative to other countries.
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The Financial Development Report 2012
The 2012 Financial Development Report ranks 62 of the world’s leading financial systems and capital markets, analysing the drivers of financial system development in advanced and emerging economies to serve as a tool for countries to benchmark themselves and establish priorities for reform. The rankings are based on over 120 variables spanning institutional and business environments, financial stability, and size and depth of capital markets, among other factors.The Report includes contributions from scholars on critical issues such as the regulation of the traditional and shadow banking...
Post date:
October 12, 2012
Redefining the Emerging Market Opportunity: Driving Growth through Financial Services Innovation
Redefining the Emerging Market Opportunity: Driving Growth through Financial Services Innovation reveals how global competition in financial services has been transformed by the rapid growth of emerging economies, which are now the leading source of the industry's long-term business prosperity. The Report, produced in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group, documents how innovative emerging-market financial companies have vaulted into the ranks of top-performing, world-class providers. They now dominate the list of financial companies providing the highest shareholder...
Post date:
May 25, 2012
Financial Development Report 2011
Hong
Kong tops the rankings in this year's edition of the World Economic Forum's
Financial Development Report. Isabella Reuttner and Kevin Steinberg discuss
these findings and the report's structure.
Post date:
December 13, 2011
The Financial Development Report 2011
Hong
Kong SAR overtakes the United States and the United Kingdom to top the World
Economic Forum’s fourth annual Financial
Development Report. As the first Asian financial centre to achieve this
rank, Hong Kong’s position was bolstered by strong scores in non-banking
financial services such as IPO activity and insurance.
Although
it fell one spot to 2nd place, the United States’ overall score remains almost
unchanged compared to last year. While financial stability continues to be a
concern, the US was able to offset this weakness with strong financial
intermediation results. Particular...
Post date:
December 13, 2011
Global Competitiveness
The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 assesses the competitiveness landscape of 144 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The Report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide. Access the data platform to visualize and download the data.This year’s report findings show that Switzerland tops the overall rankings in The Global Competitiveness Report for the fourth consecutive year. Singapore remains in second position with Finland, in third position, overtaking Sweden 4th. These and other...
Post date:
September 7, 2011
The Financial Development Report 2010
The United States and the United Kingdom managed to take the top spots despite stagnant or weakening scores in the World Economic Forum’s third annual Financial Development Report released today. Weak scores in financial stability for both countries appeared to impact the United Kingdom more with an appreciable decline in its overall score and a drop from the top spot in last year’s rankings. Their rankings were supported by greater relative declines in other countries’ scores. The scores for Asian financial centres Hong Kong and Singapore advanced to close their distance from the two...
Post date:
November 11, 2010
Private investors
There is little doubt that private investors face a more challenging financial climate than at any time in a generation.As financial reforms gather pace attention is focusing on the impact that this is likely to have on the financial services industry, on private equity investors and on the wallets of professionals.Will there be appetite for more initial public offerings in 2011, thereby providing an exit for some companies' investors - this remains unclear. What is clear is that uncertainty will remain a feature of the landscape for some time to come. Eric Mindich, Founder and...
Post date:
November 10, 2010
Technology and Innovation in Financial Services: Scenarios to 2020 - Preface and Executive Summary
Three scenarios explore how innovation will transform access to, and delivery of, financial services by 2020, in a globalized world. Will innovation be incremental or fundamental, will it be driven by traditional or new players, and what types of innovation will we see?
Post date:
November 4, 2010
The Future of the Global Financial System: A Near-Term Outlook and Long-Term Scenarios
This initial report from the New Financial Architecture was mandated by the Forum’s investors and financial services communities in January 2008 to explore the driving forces that are shaping the global financial system in both the near-term and the long-term, and how these forces might affect governance and industry structure. This report is the outcome of phase one and presents a near-term analysis for key stakeholders and employs scenario thinking to describe four potential long-term futures for the global financial system.
Post date:
November 3, 2010
Stimulating economic growth
There is widespread agreement that the international community needs to undertake a complementary set of adjustments in national policies supported by improvements in international cooperation to rebalance the world economy and make it more inclusive and sustainable. There are numerous key points to bear in mind.Viewed over a half-century, the global economy is in better shape than the crisis might indicate. Mankind is better off than it has ever been and technology promises to make things even better. Whatever choices are made to improve global governance, care must be taken not to...
Post date:
November 3, 2010
The Global Economic Impact of Private Equity Report 2008: Globalization of Alternative Investments
The World Economic Forum’s research project on the “Global Economic Impact of Private Equity” sought to analyse private equity transactions, meaning equity investments by professionally managed partnerships that involve leveraged buyouts or other equity investments with a substantial amount of associated indebtedness (as opposed, for instance, to venture capital investments in start-ups). The goal was to complete a rigorous study of the impact of these investments around the world, prepared by a tightly organized consortium of leading international scholars.This volume of Working Papers...
Post date:
November 2, 2010
The Financial Development Report 2009
The world's largest economies took the biggest hit in the World Economic Forum's second annual Financial Development Report. Global financial centres still lead in the report's Index, but the effects of financial instability have pulled down their scores compared to last year. The United Kingdom, buoyed by the relative strength of its banking and non-banking financial activities, claimed the Index's top spot from the US, which slipped to third position behind Australia largely due to poorer financial stability scores and a weakened banking sector. The report ranks 55 of the world's leading...
Post date:
October 24, 2010
Sustainable credit
In the aftermath of the global recovery attention is focusing on how to ensure greater stability amid concern about the susceptibility of some banks to ongoing turmoil and after-shocks in the financial markets.As banks repair their balance sheets and deal with huge writedowns concerns remain that with markets still reluctant to support leverage the severely diminished flow of credit may undermine a global recovery. It is accepted that the credit recovery will be slow and that policy moves by lawmakers may be required to address credit constraints. The International Monetary Fund has...
Post date:
October 20, 2010
New Financial Architecture
The Forum has looked at the driving forces shaping the global financial system and how these forces might affect governance and industry structure. Two reports on this subject have been published.The first report The Future of the Global Financial System: A Near-Term Outlook and Long-Term Scenarios1, published in January 2009 explored: How the financial crisis, and the changes it has precipitated in financial regulation and supervision, might affect the near-term structure of wholesale financial markets and how these changes would likely impact players in the banking, insurance...
Post date:
October 20, 2010
Alternative Investments
Through recent years, alternative investment asset classes such as private equity have become increasingly important pools of capital in the global financial system.Private equity activity in particular (defined as equity investments by professionally managed partnerships that involve leveraged buyouts or other equity investments with a substantial indebtedness) has accelerated noticeably. The total value of firms (both equity and debt) acquired in leveraged buyouts is estimated to be $3.6 trillion from 1970 to 2007, of which $2.7 trillion worth of transactions occurred between 2001 and 2007....
Post date:
October 20, 2010
Management Lessons from the Financial Crisis
Klaus Kleinfeld, a Mentor for the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, who has been a chief executive officer of two multinational companies and is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Alcoa, shares his unique perspective with global growth companies and discusses key lessons from the financial crisis.
Designed for Global Growth Companies
Simultaneous interpretation in English, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese
Post date:
September 11, 2009
The Global Financial Crisis: A View from Seoul
• Ahn Ho-Young • Cho Suck-Rai • Robert GreenhillModerated by • Richard Samans Thursday 18 JuneIn a crisis, communities often come together, and this seems to be one of those times. Asia was not a source of the current crisis, but is proving to be a source of solutions. With its experience dealing with the Asian financial crisis a decade ago and preparing to assume the G20 presidency next year, many people are interested in hearing the views from South Korea.• Due to the global financial crisis, the whole world fell into recession. Further, as US financial institutions and ...
Post date:
June 18, 2009
