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Rethink Role of State in Finance, says World Bank

 It is time to rethink the role of the state in the financial sector, so that governments can better balance the need for credit and emergency support for banks with measures to promote transparency and competition when crises erupt, says a new World Bank report.

"Governments need to provide strong supervision and ensure healthy competition in the financial sector. They also need to support financial infrastructure, such as better quality credit information that is shared more systematically," says World Bank Group Managing Director Mahmoud Mohieldin. "But the mixed results of their direct role in issuing credits merits close examination. Indeed, as we emerge from the global financial crisis, governments may want to consider shifting toward indirect interventions."

The Global Financial Development Report: Rethinking the Role of the State in Finance, examines how financial systems around the world fared during the global financial crisis. Coinciding with the anniversary of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, the report draws on several new global surveys and compiles unique country-level data covering more than 200 economies since the 1960s.

Analyzing four characteristics-the size of financial institutions and markets, financial access, efficiency, and stability—the report tracks financial systems in the run up to the global financial crisis and gauges the extent of their recovery to date. The authors confirm that developing economy financial systems are less deep and provide less access than those in developed economies, but they do not differ much in terms of stability.