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Welcome to the Financial Inclusion Regulation Center
Over the last thirty years, microfinance has matured from a small group of NGOs providing tiny loans to a broad industry encompassing banks, MFIs, credit unions, NGOs, and other institutions offering a range of financial services to the poor. Increasingly, financial sector regulators and supervisors, donors and investors, academics and researchers, MFIs and national microfinance networks, and other stakeholders are seeking to understand different regulatory approaches that enable the expansion of sustainable microfinance services and address important topics in financial inclusion such as branchless banking and financial consumer protection. The Financial Inclusion Regulation Center (the "Regulation Center") addresses this need by providing a broad, timely collection of the laws and regulations most relevant to key financial inclusion topics. The Regulation Center serves as an easily accessible resource for multiple purposes. For example, the Regulation Center allows regulators to quickly get an overview of different regulatory approaches across a number of countries in which they are interested, while also allowing researchers to utilize regulatory texts to perform more detailed analyses on topics such as licensing, organizational registration and risk management requirements for non-bank financial institutions. However, we strongly discourage use of the regulatory texts in the Regulation Center for drafting purposes, as the context of the broader legal and economic system for each country must be taken into account to fully understand any regulatory text. QUALIFIER In addition to cgap.org’s disclaimer (“Disclaimer”), please note that the Regulation Center is not legal advice, and should not be construed as such. The documents and summaries posted on the Regulation Center have been gathered, organized and/or drafted for User (as defined in Disclaimer) convenience for informational purposes. CGAP is not responsible to any User for any inaccuracy, error, omission, or incompleteness of any content maintained in the Regulation Center, including any unofficial translations of legal documents. For example, a law included on this site may have been repealed or amended, or other laws relevant to a User may not be included. Reliance upon, and use of this Regulation Center, and any information contained in it or accessed through it, is at the User’s sole risk. The Regulation Center includes the following four categories of information for nearly 30 countries: 1. Overview Concise summary of the main institutions involved in providing financial services to the poor in a country, the government bodies regulating such institutions, and any country-specific highlights regarding ongoing policy or regulatory developments related to financial inclusion. 2. Regulators Links to the websites of regulators who play a significant role in regulating and supervising institutions providing financial services to the poor. 3. Laws and Regulations (divided into 3 topics) Copies of laws and regulations carefully selected for relevance to financial inclusion. General emphasis is on primary laws and main regulations, while more detailed rules issued by a regulatory authority are included based on importance. Where available, English language, official versions of legal texts are provided; otherwise, native language or unofficial versions, and/or unofficial translations, of legal texts are provided. For each law or regulation, the year in which such law or regulation was enacted or amended through and the language of such law or regulation if not English are both indicated. High-level summaries are provided for each law/regulation, as well as links to related laws/regulations, related amendments and other language versions. Laws and regulations are grouped into the following three topics, with examples of subtopics covered in each topic:
For a subset of countries, a blurb on the regulatory environment for financial consumer protection is provided that identifies to the extent possible: (a) the main regulatory texts related to the financial consumer protection subtopics listed above and (b) where applicable and relevant, the authorities in charge of financial consumer protection oversight. When in the Regulation Center, click on "[show more]" to display the entire blurb. Note that in some instances where branchless banking and consumer protection laws or regulations are already included under microfinance and banking laws and regulations, separate summaries for such legal texts highlight branchless banking-related or consumer protection-related provisions, as applicable and as indicated in the title of such duplicative law or regulation entries. 4. Recommended Reading Links to CGAP and external research and publications related to regulation and financial inclusion for a specific country or countries. The Regulation Center can be navigated by country or by category. A user can also view information by law or regulation, see the latest additions to the Regulation Center, or perform a simple search for a specific law or regulation.
The information in the Regulation Center has been gathered primarily through online research performed by CGAP staff and consultants. A number of sources were utilized, including the Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment (EIU), Financial Access 2009: Measuring Access to Financial Services around the World (CGAP), central bank websites, online legal databases, and a wide variety of research, reports, news articles and publications. This research was performed through desk review and, where possible, vetted by knowledgeable stakeholders such as practitioners, lawyers, and regulators with local expertise. The core content of the Regulation Center builds off of a previous joint project by CGAP and the IRIS Center, the Microfinance Regulation and Supervision Resource Center. Assistance in gathering financial consumer protection-related information was provided by the University of Michigan International Transactions Clinic (ITC). We highly encourage user contribution to the Regulation Center. As anyone who has researched laws and regulations from an international comparative perspective knows well, it can be exceedingly difficult to find accurate, up to date information on laws and regulations. We welcome any contributions of new or additional information. Links to contribute additional knowledge can be found throughout the site (“Have new info? Please contribute”). We rely on practitioners working in the field of financial inclusion and invested in the Regulation Center’s content to help us keep the site comprehensive and timely. A number of additional resources related to financial inclusion policy and regulation that complement the information on the Regulation Center can be found by browsing cgap.org. Users of the Regulation Center may find the Guiding Principles on Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance and the Financial Access Project of particular interest. In addition, the Microfinance Gateway features a wide range of research and publications, while French and Spanish affiliates Le Portail Microfinance and El Portal de Microfinanzas include informative country profiles in French and Spanish, respectively. |
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