All around the world, people are increasingly using their phones or other mobile devices for payments and other personal financial activities. The digitalised provision of specific financial services is referred to as “fintech” and makes use of innovative software and technologies, mobile devices, the Internet, and various other technologies. Fintech has brought about new business models and is claimed to be causing a paradigm shift. However, citizens are hardly aware of the possible hazards for their finances and privacy,…

UN Secretary-General António Guterres and world leaders sounded the alarm on debt payments recently at a high-level meeting on debt and liquidity. There are too many high debt payments diverting money needed by poorer countries to tackle the pandemic and its economic downturn, climate change, and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). In April 2020, the G20 offered ways and conditions to the poorest countries for suspending servicing their debt during the pandemic by launching the Debt Servicing Suspension…

As many as three explicit interventions for the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were announced by the Indian government as part of the post-Covid-19 recovery stimulus programme. These include the long-pending revision in the definition of MSMEs, emergency collateral-free credit, and the promotion of e-market linkages in the times of social distancing. While all three initiatives are welcome, there exist several implications for the MSMEs.

For a long time, firms believed “the smaller the better” to avail benefits. These…

Two innovative investment treaty models developed by major emerging economies came to light in 2015 when Brazil concluded its first Cooperation and Facilitation Investment Agreements (CFIAs, or ACFIs, in its Portuguese-language abbreviation) marriage between the two: on…

Now that the financial markets are in turmoil, authorities are providing ever more robust measures and extra capital. But the panic in the financial markets is very much of its own making. The financial industry succeeded for years in fiercely opposing intervention and regulation that would have prevented the current financial distress. Authorities now have to face the resulting weak regulatory framework and restrict the viral excesses of the financial industry’s behavior. Rather than fleeing and waiting on the…