Financial System Stability, Regulation, and Financial Inclusion

Financial authorities face a number of key challenges, including maintaining financial stability; ensuring long-term finance for stable economic growth; promoting greater access to financial services for both households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); and fostering a competitive financial industry. Access to finance for SMEs is particularly important, given their large shares in economic activity and employment in Asian economies. Striking the appropriate balance in achieving these objectives through financial supervision and regulation is an important policy issue for financial regulators. This book provides the record of a joint conference on this subject organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific on the topic Financial System Stability, Financial Regulation, and Financial Inclusion, held on 27 January 2014 in Tokyo. Participants included noted scholars, policy makers and financial industrial participants from Asia.§§The conference focused on four topic areas: possible trade-offs between financial stability and moves to increase competition in the financial sector, including the issue of unfair advantages of too-big-to-fail firms; access to finance for SMEs, including credit databases and the role of financial access in SME exports; the nexus of financial inclusion, financial stability, and financial education; and ways to secure stable sources of finance for long-term growth in Asia. The book should provide an important resource for policy makers, academics and think tanks working in these areas.§§Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) §§ADBI, located in Tokyo, is the think tank of the Asian Development Bank. Its mission is to identify effective development strategies and improve development management in ADB s developing member countries.§§Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA)§§The FSA is responsible for ensuring the stability of Japan s financial system, the protection of depositors, insurance policyholders and securities investors, and smooth finance through such measures as planning and policymaking.§§International Monetary Fund (IMF)§§The IMF s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific contributes to economic surveillance and research, leads the IMF s involvement in regional cooperation, manages regional capacity building programs, and promotes the understanding and two-way dialogue of the IMF in the region.§