With criticism from both outside and inside the organisation, the World Bank Group has had to rethink its strategy and objectives in recent years. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim discusses these changes in an exclusive interview with The Banker, explaining why the institution remains a vital force on the world stage and how it plans to tackle pressing global problems such as poverty and climate change.
Colombia might boast one of the strongest economies in Latin America but the country's finance minister, Mauricio Cardenas, is more than aware that its economic growth – largely dominated by its energy and mining sectors, which benefit only a small proportion of the population – needs to be diversified and its rewards better distributed.
Ecuador’s banks have undergone sweeping changes, as the Rafael Correa-led government seeks to redress the balance between lenders and their customers. Officials say the interventions are necessary, but with big banks hit the hardest, bankers are asking just how this regulation benefits the market.
Increasing tariffs on luxury goods and social sector government spending may not be conventional economic policy moves, but they have worked for Ecuador’s finance minister, Patricio Rivera, who has helped the country's gross domestic product to grow while reducing its poverty rate, decreasing unemployment and increasing the country's energy capacity.
A new proposal in Mexico is urging foreign-owned banks to list on the country's stock exchange. But while these banks achieve high returns on equity and the global equity markets remain volatile, the Mexican regulators may have a wait on their hands before these plans come to fruition.
With its high economic growth rates and a good macroeconomic performance, Peru faces both the challenge of its number one trading partner, the US, bracing itself for another recession, and the fact that poverty now affects 31% of the South American country's population.
The International Monetary Fund is being called into question amid fears that it is short of the necessary resources to temper the eurozone crisis and accusations that the historically Eurocentric organisation is not reforming its voting system fast enough to embrace emerging economies.
Some US community banks managed themselves conservatively and stuck to their knitting while others expanded too quickly on the back of the real-estate boom. While the former are prospering, the problems and failures among the latter are adding up.