Preserving Access to Finance during the Global Crisis

Session 2Preserving Access to Finance – Financial Institutions and its clients

2009 KfW Financial Sector Development Symposium

Berlin, X December 2009

Ishrat HusainDirector, Institute of Business Administration,

Karachi, Pakistan

●Impact of the crisis on the poor

●Impact on the Financial Sectors of the Emerging and Developing

Economies (EDEs)

●What happened to the Low Income Countries?

●The latest situation

●Future outlook

OUTLINE

●World Bank estimates that 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day) by end of 2010.

●Over 25m people may have lost jobs in 30 rich nations.

●ODI estimates that by the end of 2009, developing countries may have lost incomes of at least $750 billion.

●As the poor are less able to insulate themselves against shocks the current crisis has endangered progress towards millennium development goals.

PRESERVING ACCESS TO FINANCEIMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON THE POOR

●Collective net worth of US Households (HHs) was eroded by $13 trillion between 2007 and 1st quarter 2009. Consequently, they had to cut their spending and resort to saving. Every extra percent point of saving reduces annual spending by $109 billion. So aggregate demand has contracted violently creating record rate of unemployment. Remittances by workers to Central America and Caribbean have slowed down.

●From the start of 2008 to the spring 2009 the crisis knocked $30 trillion value of global shares and $11 trillion values of homes. These losses amounted to 75 percent of world GDP. Many households have fallen below the poverty line due to loss of their homes.

●To the extent the level of credit flows to private firms and households was reduced because of heightened risk aversion job losses and lower demand for labor did indirectly affect the poor.

●As social safety nets are almost non-existent in most of the EDEs those marginally above the poverty line may have fallen back below the line after the crisis.

●The poor segments of the population in most EDEs have not benefitted from the organized financial sector in any case. World Economic Forum Report has found that EDEs are significantly weaker with respect to the retail access to finance such as small enterprise, micro-finance, etc. Therefore, the crisis did not directly affect the access in any traumatic way.

●Despite buoyant growth in China it is estimated that 25 million migrant workers were laid off lowering the remittances flow to the rural areas. 10 million more people will remain below poverty than projected and unemployment will reach about 23.6 million. 670,000 small firms went out of business.

Except for the Central and Eastern European countries majority of the countries in this group were relatively insulated from the global financial crisis although the contagion and spill over effects were quite positive. The factors responsible for this limited damage can be summarized as follows:

●The regulatory and supervisory framework was much stronger and as commercial banks formed the bulk of financial intermediation the regulation of banks was well focused. The weight of non-bank entities such as investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, insurance companies was almost negligible.

●The banks did not follow the originate and distribute business model through Securitization and retained relationship with the borrowers throughout the credit cycle.

IMPACT ON THE FINANCIAL SECTORS OF THE EMERGING AND DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

•The off-balance sheet exposures and special investment vehicles did not loom large in their businesses.

•Excessive risk taking by the banks was kept under active vigilance by the regulations. Although it was resented at the time as too much intrusion and micromanagement this approach proved to be an ultimate savior of the system.

•Complex financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations and high degree of leverage were discouraged.

•The market share of the large financial conglomerates (that were too big to fail) was kept limited by design and therefore direct exposure of the financial institutions to global financial markets was quite low. The damage to the domestic financial system was consequently not significant.

•Partial Capital Controls and lack of full capital account convertibility in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh did not allow large exposure to foreign currency denominated assets.

•The sources of funding by the commercial banks were relatively more stable relying on retail deposit base rather than wholesale financing.

•The banking systems were relatively well-capitalized, the quality of assets had improved by segmenting and spinning off non-performing loans to separate asset management companies such as in China.

•Those well integrated into the world economy recorded high growth during the upswing and thus it is logical that they would be adversely affected when the global economy is in its downturn. The pace, extent and the nature of integration determines the level of economic distress or relief arising from global financial and economic shocks.

•Creditor banks in advanced economies reduced their exposure in emerging countries. Cross border flows did decline from the pre-crisis levels affecting liquidity in the system.

•Central Banks lowered policy rates, provided ample liquidity. China relaxed credit ceilings.

•Credit growth has stabilized in several Asian economies as private domestic demand picked up and banks benefited from ample liquidity and sound capital positions.

A group of forty three, smaller, poorer countries, conflict countries, fragile countries depend a lot on aid and remittances.

- Growth slowed down in 2008 and is forecast to be no better in

2009.

- They witnessed a lot of volatility in commodity prices prior to

2007.

- Food prices in August 2009 are still 57.6% higher than in 2005

while energy prices are 27.5% above their average in 2005.

Terms of trade have somewhat improved in 2009 due to lower

oil prices. Oil exporters saw their incomes fall by 5.4% of GDP.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOW INCOME COUNTRIES?

Balance of Payments

- Exports from LICs are down between 5 to 10 percent in volume

and 14 percent in value terms. This has led to lay offs in export

oriented industries.

- Aggregate deficit on trade rose from 6.3% of GDP to 9.2% of GDP. Current account deficits are up from 8.7% to 11.7% of GDP while the world wide tourism receipts declined by 8% in 2009.

Capital Flows

- Net private flows are down to $13 billion only from $21 billion in 2008 and $30 billion in 2007.

- Equity markets in LICs have fallen along with those advanced countries.

- ODA flows from all OECD countries reached $120 billion lagging behind Gleneagles commitment.

- Workers’ remittances an important source of foreign exchange earnings fell by 5-7% in 2009.

Financial Sector

•Parent-subsidiary relationship where the global banks were involved resulted in drying up of offshore funds.

•Real economy weaknesses resulted in (i) increase in NPLs (ii) tightening liquidity due to reduced trade credit flows (iii) withdrawal of liquidity from local subsidiaries of foreign banks, (iv) contagion risk for regional banks heightened – South African Banks own 24% of Africa’s banks.

Fiscal Retrenchment

●Revenues and grants are estimated to have declined by average 2 percent in the last two years. Hard hit are revenues dependent on commodity exports.

●As the Governments are forced to reduce public expenditures households are pushed into poverty, health conditions deteriorate and school attendance declines. Similar effects observed from decline in remittances from workers overseas.

●In thin domestic credit markets Government borrowing crowds out private sector as the domestic banks prefer less risky assets.

Poverty

● Difficult to assess the impact of the crisis on the poor but there is an agreement that the gains made in the period prior to 2007 have been eroded. The cuts in public expenditures to remain within fiscal prudential limits are likely to slow down the progress in the achievement of MDGs.

● Financial sector in these countries has not been particularly responsive to the credit needs of small farmers, small scale entrepreneurs, low income housing, micro-enterprises. Tighter borrowing conditions, rising borrowing costs and increased risk aversion must have further reduced the loanable funds to the poor and vulnerable groups of the society.

LATEST SITUATION

● World economy is beginning to move out of recession. World GDP will expand by 3.1% in 2010, 1.2 percent points faster than forecast in April. Emerging economies are projected to achieve almost 5% growth up from 1.75% in 2009. Downside risks to growth are receding gradually but remain a concern.

● Global Stock Markets have rallied by 64% since their trough demonstrating more-rapid-than expected improvement in confidence.

● Corporate Finance, once frozen, is thawing fast. Some Big Banks are beginning to make profits.

● Unemployment is still rising and much manufacturing capacity remains idle. In the U.S. unemployment rate has reached 10.2 percent despite better than expected GDP growth.

● Many of the sources of today’s growth are temporary & precarious as they are driven by fiscal and monetary stimulus provided by the Government.

● Across the globe spending is being driven by government largesse, not animal spirits. Massive fiscal & monetary stimulus is cushioning the damage to households and banks’ balance sheets but the underlying problems remain.

● In US, household debts are worryingly high and banks need to bolster their capital. That suggests consumer spending will be lower and the cost of capital higher than before the crunch.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

● Prospects for the EDEs will depend upon which of the two options is materialized?

Will the world economy return roughly to its pre-crisis rate of growth without regaining the ground lost?

OrGrowth will stay at permanently lower rate with investment, employment & productivity growth all feebler than before. Financial sector problems have not completely unraveled themselves.

● Persistent damage to economic growth potential as well as its level will result in sluggish income gains and diminished expectations.

• Strong policy implementation remains the key and premature withdrawal of stimulus could jeopardize the recovery. However, the room for policy manoeurvability for the advanced countries is limited.

• Budget deficits of G20 countries that account for 80% of the world economy have risen to 8.1% of GDP. Debt stock has already reached 100% of GDP and is projected to reach about 120% by 2014. This group of economies would have to generate a surplus of 4.5% of GDP every year to contain this debt burden.

• Fiscal retrenchment of this magnitude is likely to slow down the pace of economic growth in the G-20 countries relative to the pre-2007 period. The probable outcome therefore is that recovery will pick up the speed in 2010 but the long term growth rates of the world economy are likely to remain subdued.

• Investment has already fallen sharply. The rising scrap rates are reducing effective capital stocks. The stock of capital in the US has already shrunk by 6%. It is estimated that this alone will lower potential output by 2% annually.

• The implication of this probable outcome is that we will witness jobless growth in the OECD countries while the rate of labor absorption in the emerging and developing economies will be lower than the recent past trends. The fight against poverty would prove to be tougher and access to finance by the marginalized and low income groups would have to be accelerated.

• Historical evidence indicates that there were large permanent hits to output in the aftermath of past financial crisis. There is no reason to expect that crisis of this magnitude would not leave its footprint on the global output potential at least in the immediate future

- Emerging and developing countries should strengthen their safety nets and plan their crisis interventions to protect the weakest.

- Financial Sector Development Strategies in these countries should pursue policies and institutional investments that open access to the poor and marginal groups.

- Net capital flows $140 billion 2007 shifted to net outflows of $140 billion by June 2008.

- Since 1990, the share of the population living in absolute poverty has declined from 55% t less than 10% of the population from 873 million to fewer than 200 million.