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International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper discusses growth strategy for Ghana. Ghana has achieved impressive development gains over the last decades, with rising incomes, lower poverty, and better health, education, and gender outcomes. However, growth has recently become less inclusive, with high inequality and slower poverty reduction. In order to address these challenges, the authorities are pursuing a “Ghana beyond Aid” development strategy centered around agricultural modernization and export-led industrialization. Accelerating productivity growth calls for fostering competition, improving the business environment, strengthening human capital, taking advantage of growing regional markets and industrial policies that prioritize sectors that can export and innovate and where Ghana could achieve economies of scale. Consistent and predictable government policies can help increase long-term investment and improve public spending effectiveness. A key lesson from growth accelerations in other countries is that it is crucial to achieve economies of scale. In most cases, rapid economic growth required achieving export success in specific sectors.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper investigates state-owned financial institutions’ (SOFIs) performance in developing economies. It focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, zooming in on the Togolese experience with SOFIs and privatization, at a time when the Togolese government has decided to further disengage from the financial sector. Typically set up with a public interest and financial inclusion mandate, SOFIs tend to weaken financial stability and fiscal discipline in developing economies, especially if they are not typically regulated and supervised on the same basis as other banks. Togo’s and cross-country experiences suggest that performance improves more after privatization when the government fully relinquishes control, when banks are privatized to strategic investors rather than through share issues, and when bidding is open to all, including foreign banks. The success of privatization also hinges on the business environment for competition, governance, and entry, on banks’ valuation and how policy concerns are dealt with, as well as on owner’s prudential review quality.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
This Technical Assistance Report discusses the findings and recommendations made by the IMF mission regarding monetary and foreign exchange operations in Uganda, Bank of Uganda (BOU) recapitalization, and Bank of Uganda Act revision. The presence of sizable precautionary and involuntary reserves and excessive short-end volatility has weakened the transmission mechanism in Uganda. The key challenge remains to enhance monetary and fiscal policy coordination and to ensure that institutional and operational arrangements are robust and conducive to efficient monetary operations framework. The BOU should raise the effectiveness of the monetary and foreign exchange operations framework. To foster further market development there is need to anchor short-term interest rates by using various fine-tuning instruments to ensure improved operational efficiency and strengthen transmission of policy signals across the curve.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes the financial sector in Tanzania. The Tanzanian financial system has a number of characteristics commonly seen in other low-income countries. The system is relatively small, dominated by banks, and has not been particularly inclusive. Costs related to basic financial services have come down. However, in other areas, progress remains limited. Firms’ access to credit remains a problem, access to the financial infrastructure continues to lag, and market development remains at a low level. The banking system overall is well-capitalized and reasonably profitable, but there is considerable variation among bank categories.
Mr. Emre Alper
,
Mr. R. Armando Morales
, and
Mr. Fan Yang
This paper analyzes the degree to which volatility in interbank interest rates leads to volatility in financial instruments with longer maturities (e.g., T-bills) in Kenya since 2012, year in which the monetary policy framework switched to a forward-looking approach, relative to seven other inflation targeting (IT) countries (Ghana, Hungary, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, and Uganda). Kenya shows strong volatility transmission and high persistence similar to other countries in transition to a more forward-looking monetary policy framework. These results emphasize the importance of a strong commitment to an interbank rate as an operational target and suggest that the central bank could reduce uncertainty in short-term yields significantly by smoothing out the overnight interest rates around the policy rate.
Charles Abuka
,
Ronnie K Alinda
,
Ms. Camelia Minoiu
,
José-Luis Peydró
, and
Mr. Andrea F Presbitero
The transmission of monetary policy to credit aggregates and the real economy can be impaired by weaknesses in the contracting environment, shallow financial markets, and a concentrated banking system. We empirically assess the bank lending channel in Uganda during 2010–2014 using a supervisory dataset of loan applications and granted loans. Our analysis focuses on a short period during which the policy rate rose by 1,000 basis points and then came down by 1,200 basis points. We find that an increase in interest rates reduces the supply of bank credit both on the extensive and intensive margins, and there is significant pass-through to retail lending rates. We document a strong bank balance sheet channel, as the lending behavior of banks with high capital and liquidity is different from that of banks with low capital and liquidity. Finally, we show the impact of monetary policy on real activity across districts depends on banking sector conditions. Overall, our results indicate significant real effects of the bank lending channel in developing countries.
Mr. Calixte Ahokpossi
Financial intermediation is low in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to other regions of the world. This paper examines the determinants of bank interest margins using a sample of 456 banks in 41 SSA countries. The results show that market concentration is positively associated with interest margins, but the impact depends on the level of efficiency of each bank. In particular, compared to inefficient banks, efficient ones increase their margins more in concentrated markets. This indicates that policies that promote competition and reduce market concentration would help lower interest margins in SSA. The results also show that bank-specific factors such as credit risk, liquidity risk, and bank equity are important determinants of interest margins. Finally, interest margins are sensitive to inflation, but not to economic growth or public or foreign ownership. There are regional differences within SSA regarding the level of interest margins even after controlling for other factors.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Uganda has benefited from international reserve accumulation. The fiscal stance is tighter mainly owing to delays in execution of a large hydropower project. A suspension of budget support owing to theft of donor funds has curtailed spending plans and hurt growth prospects. The authorities have acknowledged the damage from corruption and responded to the concerns of development partners. Tight policies have led to the achievement of program targets. Sound macroeconomic policies need to be accompanied by reinforced efforts to fight corruption.
International Monetary Fund
This paper presents key findings of the Third Review for Uganda under the policy support instrument. Monetary policy has been tightened significantly to reduce core inflation, supported by a contractionary fiscal stance. All but one of the seven quantitative assessment criteria were met at end-June; most structural benchmarks were met, although several with delay. Tighter monetary and fiscal policies in the near term aim to reduce inflation rapidly, while medium-term policies strive to create fiscal space to support stepped-up public infrastructure investment.
International Monetary Fund
This supplement presents ten case studies, which highlight the roles of targeted policies to facilitate sustainable financial deepening in a variety of country circumstances, reflecting historical experiences that parallel a range of markets in LICs. The case studies were selected to broadly capture efforts by countries to increase reach (e.g., financial inclusion), depth (e.g., financial intermediation), and breadth of financial systems (e.g., capital market, cross-border development). The analysis in the case studies highlights the importance of a balanced approach to financial deepening. A stable macroeconomic environment is vital to instill consumer, institutional, and investor confidence necessary to encourage financial market activity. Targeted public policy initiatives (e.g., collateral, payment systems development) can be helpful in removing impediments and creating infrastructure for improved market operations, while ensuring appropriate oversight and regulation of financial markets, to address potential sources of instability and market failures.