World Bank Group: Financial Inclusion – Banking on Low-Income Households

Financial exclusion restricts economic opportunity and constrains poverty reduction. Yet today there are an estimated 2.5 billion adult people worldwide who go about their lives without any formal financial services such as bank accounts. According to the World Bank’s Global

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Jesse Lauriston Livermore: The Boy Plunger

Playing the stock market in order to make a bundle is not a pursuit deemed suitable for the faint of heart. For every story starring an investor who struck it rich, there are countless others of poor souls who lost

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Mario Draghi: ECB President Gearing Up for Eurozone Growth Spurt

Italian banker Mario Draghi entertains no doubts at all: Pessimist, sceptics, naysayers and assorted worrywarts severely underestimate the resolve extant – political and otherwise – to forge the euro into a resounding success. Then again, the president of the European

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Fata Morgana in the High Alps: Musings on Davos

While currencies crumbled in emerging markets ranging from Turkey to Argentina, the world’s mostly self-appointed leaders and assorted hangers-on gathered in Davos, Switzerland to assure global audiences that the future looks bright and promising indeed. Keep Calm and Carry On.

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Global Banking Alliance for Women – GBA: Banking the Female Economy

Inez Murray is the CEO of the Global Banking Alliance for Women, a global consortium of financial institutions driving women’s wealth creation. Its 34 member banks work in 135 countries to build innovative, comprehensive programs that provide women entrepreneurs with

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Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group: Walking on the Wild Side – Monetary Policy and Prudential Regulation

Global financial integration and the linkages between the financial and the real sides of economies are sources of huge policy challenges. This is now beyond doubt, after what we saw in the run-up to and the unfolding of the 2008

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Grant Thornton: Islamic Finance – What’s In It For Me?

Grant Thornton United Arab Emirates (UAE) Audit Partner, Khurram Bhatti talks about the key aspects related to Islamic Finance. There is much to both venerate and praise about Islamic Finance. Its stated philosophy and principles are probably as close to

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Deficits Matter, but Not the Way You Might Think

By Bob Veres. This originally appeared on Advisor Perspectives. Congress is coming off of a bruising debate over the deficit ceiling – a preview of what we will experience again in a few months. The economy is growing slowly – some

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Cyprus on the Mend?

By Delia Velculescu, IMF Mission Chief for Cyprus Speech given at the Economist Conference, Nicosia, November 25, 2013 Much has already been accomplished in the relatively short time since the approval of the stability program for Cyprus. Let me give three

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Maha Al-Ghunaim: Enterprising Ladies – Investing in Future Entrepreneurs

Maha Al-Ghunaim is chairperson and managing director of Global Investment House (GIH) – one of the largest such operations in the Gulf Region. She co-founded GIH in 1998 and just ten years later saw her business become the very first

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