Financial Inclusion, Regulation, Literacy, and Education in Central Asia and South Caucasus

Financial inclusion and financial education are becoming increasingly recognized as key requirements for sustainable and inclusive growth, and have been recognized as such by international fora such the Group of Twenty (G20) and the OECD. However, countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus region have generally lagged in this area. Aside from Kazakhstan, the levels of financial inclusion are substantially below the average level of developing economies. Moreover, there has been little study of the determinants of and barriers to the development of financial inclusion and financial literacy in this region.

In this study, prominent scholars in each country examine recent trends in financial inclusion in seven countries—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—for both individuals and small and medium-sized firms (SMEs); institutional and regulatory barriers to the expansion of financial inclusion; and policy options to support greater financial inclusion while maintaining financial stability. The book also examines issues related to the assessment of financial literacy and promotion of financial education to support greater financial inclusion in the region.

One prominent feature of the region is the relatively slow uptake of innovative financial technologies that could promote financial inclusion such as mobile phone banking, crowd funding and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. This book examines the barriers to such development, as recommends policies to facilitate the introduction of such technologies.

Naoyuki Yoshino is Dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) and Professor Emeritus at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. He obtained his PhD from Johns Hopkins University (United States) in 1979. He has been a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States) and a visiting professor at various universities including the University of New South Wales (Australia), Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (France), and University of Gothenburg (Sweden). He has also been an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and an economics professor at Keio University.

Peter Morgan is Senior Consulting Economist and Co-Chair of Research at the Asian Development Bank Institute. Previously he served in Hong Kong as Chief Asia Economist for HSBC, responsible for macroeconomic analysis and forecasting for Asia. Before that, he was Chief Japan Economist for HSBC, and earlier held similar positions at Merrill Lynch, Barclays de Zoete Wedd, and Jardine Fleming. Peter's research areas are macroeconomic policy and financial sector regulation and reform. He earned his MA and PhD degrees in economics from Yale University.

Dossym Kydyrbayev is Partner at Rakurs Consulting Group in Kazakhstan. He has held a number of senior management positions in banking and finance, has an experience in oil and gas and manufacturing, took part in the design of strategies for a number of large financial and manufacturing companies. Member of the Board of Directors: “VTB Bank Kazakhstan” JSC, Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie France Kazakhstan.