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1. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a fragile state, vulnerable to natural disasters and terms of trade shocks. Low commodity prices in 2014-20, a severe drought in 2015-16, and a major earthquake in 2018 softened growth, led to shortages of foreign exchange, and contributed to a pre-pandemic build-up of public debt. The pandemic further increased public debt, which is now at high risk of distress. Development needs remain significant. Poverty is high, with most of the population living in rural areas, without access to basic infrastructure and services.
In the past decade, fintech has shaken up the financial sector in Latin America providing innovations in lending, payments, insurance, and regulation and compliance. This paper examines this development by focusing on both fintech services and regulation. Exploring fintech’s macro-critical impact using country- and bank-level data, we find that booming financial technologies in Latin America have helped boost competition in the banking sector and inclusion. Additionally, we demonstrate that fintech firms in Latin America experienced robust growth even during the pandemic supported by external funding. Finally, we discuss how regulators are addressing the risks associated with financial technologies and how they are leveraging fintech tools in their supervisory activities.
We convey our authorities’ appreciation to the mission team for their close engagement since the completion of the Staff Monitored Programs (SMPs) and the guidance provided on the request for follow-up financial assistance under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility arrangement (EFF). A successful program (access under the ECF and EFF) will leave Papua New Guinea (PNG) in a much stronger position economically, fiscally, and through reduced debt exposure. Improvements in governance will also play an important role in supporting confidence from the community and external partners in the management of PNG. Together, the reforms to be undertaken will give our authorities more effective pathways to management of the economy, thereby promoting growth prospects while building resilience. Our authorities would like to extend their sincere gratitude to Mr. Saadi Sedik, the Mission Chief, and his team, for their outstanding work, commitment, and fruitful discussions.
A technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted during October 2022 to assist Statistics Botswana (SB) in the development of the strategic plan for the next rebase of the national accounts statistics. The SB will be focusing on the rebase over the coming years and has no plans to expand on what they currently produce unless adequate resources are obtained. The mission reviewed and suggested updates to the outline of the rebase with objectives and key tasks and to the implementation strategy. The timeline for the rebasing exercise was reviewed and agreed. The rebase will officially commence in April 2023 and is likely to take four to five years to complete, i.e., finish in 2028/29. The next base year will be 2024 given the timings of when key surveys will be undertaken, namely the Agriculture Census (2024/25), the Botswana Multi Topic Household Survey (BMTHS) (2023/24) and the Census of Economic Establishments (CEE) 2024. The questionnaires used in the last rebase were reviewed with the aim of improving the response rate and minimizing costs. The mission also provided some other examples of questionnaires which should provide some guidance.