Rodolfo Maino

Private and public agents’ plans and actions to introduce digital currencies and other innovative payment instruments could produce some unintended consequences, including the potential disappearance of physical cash. This study employs a two-sided market model to examine how payment systems might respond to new currencies. Numerical simulations indicate that the success of a new currency hinges on a large-scale launch. However, even unsuccessful attempts could disrupt existing systems, potentially resulting in the elimination of cash. If cash plays a critical role as a safeguard, regulatory and monetary authorities should give due consideration to ensure its continued availability when payment innovations are introduced.

This technical note provides an assessment of how external sector statistics capacity development has improved the availability of balance of payments and international investment position data in select countries of sub-Saharan Africa over the period FY2015–22. All countries assessed have made strides to sustain the benefits of capacity development despite continuing challenges.

"Volume 2022 (2022): Issue 054 (Mar 2022): Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa Fragile States: Evidence from Panel Estimations" published on 18 Mar 2022 by International Monetary Fund.

Using data collected from pan-African banks’ (PABs), balance sheets and other sources (Orbis, Fitch), this study identifies some key patterns of cross-border investment in bank subsidiaries by key banking groups in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and discusses some of the determinants of this investment. Using a gravity model relating the annual value of a banking group’s investment in the net equity of its subsidiaries to a set of explanatory variables, the analysis finds that cross-border banking is in part driven by a search for yield, diversification, and expansion for strategic reasons.

FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry. While it raises concerns on the emergence of vulnerabilities, FinTech challenges traditional structures and creates efficiency gains by opening up the financial services value chain. Today, FinTech is emerging as a technological enabler in the region, improving financial inclusion and serving as a catalyst for the emergence of innovations in other sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure.

There is significant room to improve public investment efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa. Investment in sub-Saharan African countries is lagging vis-à-vis peers such as emerging and developing Asia as well as Latin America and the Caribbean, and the region's infrastructure is perceived as being of relatively low quality. Improving the efficiency of sizable investment programs in the region could contribute to more solid economic growth and help achieve desired social priorities and development goals. Results point to some variability in public investment efficiency within the region. Comparing efficiency scores across country groups suggests that investment efficiency in sub-Saharan African oil exporters tends to be lower than in sub-Saharan African non-resource-intensive countries. Additionally, countries in East African Community (EAC) perform better than those in Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Stronger institutions could foster more efficient public investment. The regression results in this paper show a positive correlation between public investment efficiency and the quality of institutions, suggesting that devel-oping stronger institutions in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to a significant improvement in investment efficiency. This is particularly relevant for coun-tries with weak institutional quality, where governments may use capital spending as a vehicle for rent-seeking, leading to inefficient spending. Given the current drive for scaling up investment in sub-Saharan Africa, the task of improving institutions quickly should become a priority.

Banking in SSA has undergone very significant changes over the last two decades. Financial liberalization and related reforms, upgrades in institutional and more recently the expansion of cross-border banking activities and the rapid development of Pan-African banking groups are signaling greater financial integration and significant changes in the African banking and financial landscape. Nonetheless, excess liquidity in many countries reflects limited lending opportunities and, despite improvements, asset quality and provisioning remain comparatively low. Dollarization has also been a persistent characteristic in several natural resource-dependent economies. This paper discusses key stylized facts and trends of banking development in SSA, looking at a variety of dimensions such as size, depth, soundness, and efficiency. It also assess the rapid expansion of pan-African banking groups, which have overtaken the role of the European and U.S. banks that had traditionally dominated banking activities in SSA, creating significant cross-border networks and becoming the largest participants in new syndicates and large bilateral loans to finance infrastructure development.

Dollarization-the use of foreign currencies as a medium of exchange, store of value, or unit of account-is a notable feature of financial development under macroeconomically fragile conditions. It has emerged as a key factor explaining vulnerabilities and currency crises, which have long been observed in Latin America, parts of Asia, and Eastern Europe. Dollarization is also present, prominently, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where it remains significant and persistent at over 30 percent rates for both bank loans and deposits-although it has not increased significantly since 2001. However, progress in reducing dollarization has lagged behind other regions and, in this regard, it is legitimate to ask whether this phenomenon is an important concern in SSA. This study fills a gap in the literature by analyzing these issues with specific reference to the SSA region on the basis of the evidence for the past decade.

The Republic of Congo has seen dramatic improvement in its debt situation since 2010, following debt relief through the IMF and World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Countries/Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. Large oil revenues have allowed the country to boost spending and increase foreign exchange reserves. Yet poverty and inequality remain comparatively high. This paper examines Congo's challenge to manage its natural resource revenue and attain sustained inclusive growth.

We propose a toolkit for the assessment of systemic risk buildup in low income countries. We show that, due to non-linearity in the relationship between credit and financial stability, the assessment should be conducted with different tools at different stages of financial development. In particular, when the level of financial depth is low, traditional leading indicators of banking crises have poor predictive performance and the analysis should be based on indicators that account for financial deepening while taking into consideration countries' structural limits. By using this framework, we provide a preliminary assessment of systemic risk buildup in individual SSA countries.