The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is implementing a project on financial inclusion in various Latin American countries with the goal of identifying and promoting the development of a wide range of financial instruments that would allow development banks to foster financial inclusion of SMEs.

Within the scope of the project, ECLAC will participate in a workshop on small and medium enterprise (SME) financing and the role of development banks in Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America, organized by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in partnership with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The seminar also counts on the participation of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), The Asia Foundation, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), and the Center for International Financial Cooperation (CIFC) of the Korean Institute of Finance. The seminar will take place in Bangkok, September 27-28 of 2017, at the United Nations Conference Center.

The seminar is organized in five thematic sessions focusing on (i) The equilibrium between a greater access to financing and financial stability; (ii) The cooperation between commercial banks and microfinance institutions for SME financing; (iii) Financial infrastructure improvement for SME financing; (iv) The role of national development banks in financial inclusion of SMEs; and (v) The implications of the FinTech boom on SME financing.

Presentations are available here