Poverty Reduction and Financial Sector Development

Claessens, Stijn and Feijen, Erik H.B make a case for developing the financial sector in developing countries:

Financial sector development can contribute substantially to attaining the most important Millennium Development Goal: alleviation of extreme poverty. Policies which could foster financial sector development with wide access are multiple and include: ensuring a stable macroeconomic environment, enhancing financial sector regulation and enforcement, creating a proper credit information institutional infrastructure, and enforcing property rights. The importance of these policies for financial sector development has been well-documented in other research, but our findings give more impetus to furthering financial sector development,especially when it gives access to financial services for a broad class of people.