Impact Stories

Macedonia: Reform of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance System

This project was introduced by the World Bank together with the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Macedonia in September 2003. The consultants were drawn from a team employed by Trowbridge Deloitte (Australia). The project arose from problems connected with the operation of the motor third-party liability (MTPL) system in Macedonia: Low compliance with the law- about 50% Very slow claims processing that were expensive, clogging the courts with claims disputes, delaying compensation to victims of motor accidents and damaging the entire credibility of the MTPL Unprofitable, regulated,...

FYR of Macedonia

Insurance

Jordan: Strengthening Actuarial Supervision

The Jordanian Insurance Commission (JIC) approached FIRST directly to fund technical assistance for strengthening actuarial supervision in June 2003. The project emerged from the need for the insurance sector to develop life and pensions products with a parallel necessity for the JIC to build its regulatory and supervisory capacity for such activity. FIRST employed the UK’s Government Actuaries Department (GAD) for this project. The project was comprehensive in so far as it involved: An assessment of the life insurance market in Jordan The role of the actuary in supervision of both life and...

Jordan

Insurance

India: Development of Crop Insurance

This project is potentially replicable to other regions and or countries where weather-based crops failures are regular occurrences. There are a number of important pre-conditions for implementation which include availability and or ease of collection of data and, in the case of weather-indexing, sufficient investment in appropriately located automated weather stations. Shortcomings in these areas do not rule out development of good systems but would impact on cost and timing thereof. This was a substantial project introduced to FIRST by the World Bank and the Agricultural Insurance Company...

India

Insurance

Chile: Roadmap for Solvency Control in Insurance

Between May 2007 and January 2008, FIRST assisted in building a plan for the Chilean regulator of insurance- Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros (SVS) to implement a new risk-based supervision model for the Chilean insurance industry. A risk-based approach is more capable of reflecting differences of risk between insurers; it ensures a better-managed insurance market in which solvency rules more closely matched the risk profile of individual insurers. Thus far, risk-based approach has been typically employed by more sophisticated insurance regulators operating in more sophisticated...

Chile

Insurance

Albania: Bringing Insurance Supervision Closer to European Standards by Moving to Risk Based Approach

The project involved setting up an effective supervision methodology to transition to a risk-based supervisory approach, and a legal review to upgrade the legal framework . The overall project took place in the context of the World Bank’s capacity building strategy for the Albanian Financial Services Authority (FSA); the project’s timing reflected this systemized approach. Accordingly, the project design was mapped over a longer-term, institution-wide change management effort by the relevant agency (as opposed to an isolated task to complete by a single department). The project design also...

Albania

Insurance

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Protecting Consumers by Improving Legal Framework in Banking and Microfinance Sectors

The project is relatively large in size but at the same time is quite focused on consumer protection calibrated to the neediest financial sector market participants. It follows a World Bank diagnostic review of consumer protection and financial literacy and its dissemination through a public workshop in June 2010. An interesting objective of the project is that its outputs are expected to inform the next BiH World Bank Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), currently under preparation . Financial consumer protection is a relatively new area and thus has not been part of CPS inputs before, as...

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Banking

Mozambique: Promoting Reforms through the FSDS

Following the FSAP 2009 recommendations, the Government of Mozambique asked FIRST to assist with the development of a full-fledged FSDS to address the issue of access to finance, particularly in rural areas, among other issues. TA worth $228,000 was successfully completed in 2013 and has led to follow-up reforms worth nearly $48 million, supported by the World Bank, DFID, and FIRST. Challenge: The 2009 FSAP Update indicated that although Mozambique had made significant progress in overall financial system development and stability, serious deficiencies remained in terms of financial access...

Mozambique

Financial Sector Strategy

Liberia: Developing Capacity for Stress Testing (IMF)

Challenge: The rapid growth of bank credit, fueled by strong economic activity during 2008-2011, had an impact on the quality of assets in the banking sector. At the end of December 2011, the ratio of nonperforming loans stood at 21 percent and banks' profitability ratios were negative owing to poor asset quality and the absence of important supporting preconditions such as information infrastructure (with no credit reference bureau, no collateral registry, and weak legal enforcement), as well as the lack of domestic securities and high operating costs. With the support of the IMF's long-term...

Liberia

Macroprudential, Financial Safety Net & Crisis Preparedness

Ukraine: Capacity Building in Bank Resolution

Together with the World Bank and other donors (the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Government of the Netherlands), FIRST funded TA to provide just-in-time capacity building for the Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) to resolve and liquidate two small private banks. The TA started immediately after the DGF was given a new mandate on bank resolution by the Government of Ukraine and was implemented intensively during January-May 2013. Challenge: In the context of massive bank failures resulting in extensive losses for Ukraine's banking sector during 2008-2010, the Government of Ukraine...

Ukraine

Macroprudential, Financial Safety Net & Crisis Preparedness

Lao PDR: Promoting Reforms for Payment Systems

FIRST provided TA to the Bank of Lao to develop the national payment system strategy and create the legal and regulatory framework for the national payment system. Challenge: Modernizing payment systems was identified as a key driver for developing the financial sector for the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) in the context of the country's 10-year vision and strategy, which was developed with the support of the World Bank in 2009. Payment flows to Lao PDR are diverse and largely facilitated by the physical transfer of cash in person or by other similar means. In 2011, there were 2.5...

Lao PDR

Financial and Information Infrastructures