Lebanon ranks 44th in global micro-credit index

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its recent report on microcredit for the year 2019 in which it ranked 55 countries across the globe to evaluate their enabling environment for financial inclusion. Noting, that the EIU calculates the microscope index taking into account five areas: government and policy support; stability and integrity; products and outlets; consumer protection and infrastructure. According to the above report, Lebanon ranked 44th globally (compared to 50th in 2018) and 4th in the region with a score of 40 (compared to 33th last year). The report shows that the improvement Lebanon achieved is a result of the progress in its electronic KYC system, noting that electronic signatures are now accepted for identity verification in the country. Moreover, the report indicated that Bank of Lebanon introduced back in 2017 a financial inclusion strategy, but progress has been slow in implementing it, while taking into consideration that non-banking financial institutions sector remains largely unregulated. (Al Diyar, November 5, 2019)