Business News Americas featured Liliana Rojas Suarez on social obstacles-- such as health, education and income distribution issues-- and their impact on credit and financial expansion in many Latin American countries.
From the article:
Liliana Rojas Suarez of the Center for Global Development (CGD) tested another aspect of the financial inclusion debate, finding that social obstacles, such as health, education and income distribution issues, have become more important than legal and institutional impediments to credit and financial expansion in many Latin American countries.
While Colombia still shows a large percentage of its obstacles coming from judicial and institutional factors, for example, countries like Chile have reduced the institutional component drastically, allowing social factors to creep in as the dominant obstacle to financial inclusion.
In response to its research, CGD, which is a non-profit policy research group, formed a task force on the issue and created a guide for policymakers, which includes a push for more credit bureau systems, a shift from wholesale to retail payment systems and cooperative relationships between public and private sector entities on IT innovation in finance.