Financial Market Development - Support from the Inter-American Development Bank Group 1990-2002

This issue of Financial Market Development offers a general view of the activities of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group that supported financial market development in Latin America and the Caribbean during the period 1990-2002.

The paper highlights that during 1990-2002, the IDB Group addressed financial sector activities by targeting six critical areas:

• Banking intermediation;
• Capital markets;
• Insurance markets;
• Pension systems;
• Housing finance;
• Debt reduction.

The paper gives a glimpse of the IDBs operations in financial sector reform and market deepening across different countries. These include:

• Argentina:
  • Global credit program for small businesses and micro enterprises;
  • Investment sector reform program.
• Bolivia:
  • Multi-sector lending program;
  • Financial and investment sector reform program.
• Brazil:
  • Supervision of closed private pension funds;
  • Global credit program for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The paper concludes that in future, IDB will:

• Work in Capital markets and contribute to the process of institutional strengthening;
• Support efforts to develop deeper, more liquid bank and non-bank financial markets;
• Work with supervisory and regulatory institutions to ensure implementation of appropriate financial standards for integration of the financial markets.