Lecture series
The international financial institutions: IMF, World Bank, ADB and BIS
What the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the Bank for International Settlements are, who owns them, what each does for the economies of Southeast Asia, and how a lender can use the reports, assessments and data they publish. Six lessons.
6 of 6 lessons published. Lesson 1 is free to read.
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- 01The four institutions: why they exist, who owns them and what each doesFour international institutions provide economic advice, financing and data that concern Southeast Asia: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the Bank for International Settlements. This lesson explains when and why each was created, who owns it, what it does and whom it lends to, and which one to turn to for which question.
- 02The IMF: surveillance, Article IV reports and lending programmesThe International Monetary Fund does two things that matter directly to lenders in a member country: it regularly examines the country's economy and policies, and it lends to the country when it faces balance of payments problems. This lesson explains how an Article IV consultation works, what its report contains, how an IMF programme is agreed and paid out, how large and how costly IMF loans are, and what the programmes of 1997 meant for the region's financial sectors.
- 03The World Bank Group: IBRD, IDA, IFC and the data it publishesThe World Bank Group lends to governments on two sets of terms, invests in private companies, and publishes data on developing economies. This lesson explains how its main institutions differ, how they are funded, how the World Bank classifies economies by income, and which of its datasets a lender can use to read a market.
- 04The Asian Development Bank: lending, the private sector and regional statisticsThe Asian Development Bank is the region's own development bank. It lends to governments, invests in and lends to private companies, including financial institutions, and publishes statistics for the whole of Asia and the Pacific. This lesson explains how it is owned and funded, how large its operations are, how its private sector operations work, and which of its publications a lender can use.
- 05The BIS: the central banks' bank, the Basel Process and its statisticsThe Bank for International Settlements does not, as a rule, lend to companies or households, yet much of what a lender in Southeast Asia works under passes through it: it hosts the committees that write international banking and payment standards, and it publishes statistics on credit and debt across countries. This lesson explains who its members are, what banking it does, how the Basel Process turns cooperation into standards, which of the region's authorities take part, and how to read its debt service ratio.
- 06Using their work: country reports, financial sector assessments and data for lendersThe four institutions publish work that a lender can use before entering a market or when reviewing one it already serves. This lesson explains the joint IMF and World Bank Financial Sector Assessment Program and the reports it produces, the financial soundness indicators compiled under IMF guidance, the data on access to finance, and how to read them together, with a worked example.
Quiz and certificate 10 questions; those on lesson 1 are free to try. Read every published lesson and score 80% or more for a certificate of completion.
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