Connectivity to the Internet can serve to bring information from all over the world to the local education system. Iterative programmes can be useful to encourage participation. Web based programmes while requiring computer literacy, has a wider outreach and allows for flexibility of time that is of particular importance to women. A further means by which financial advise is provided is through financial advisors. Financial advisors are able to address the issues for the more sophisticated investors. Similarly, infrastructure for advisory services for small businesses is key. This can in particular be provided by financial institutions. Systems need to be in place where consumers and businesses are explained their rights and responsibilities. Micro credit institutions have also been highly successful in many countries in providing access to financial services to microenterprises. This will contribute towards greater reliance on the formal financial infrastructure and less on the informal structures. Higher level of consumer education and financial literacy must be complemented with effective disclosure regime, fair and transparent market practices, simplification of financial products and enhanced communications in the marketplace to minimise information asymmetry. While efforts may be taken to enhance transparency and disclosure by service providers, and while programmes for enhanced literacy can produce positive results, consumer protection is still needed. Given the asymmetry of information, consumers often do not have enough information to be completely protected. Building the confidence of consumers also requires that there be adequate avenues for consumers to seek redress to enable consumers to resolve conflicts through an equitable process.
Governments, perhaps governments everywhere, are probably behind the pace of integration that the market is driving in terms of further integration. This should provide a powerful incentive for greater speed and ambition in developing the institutional infrastructure that can accommodate the challenges that come with integration. Overall, however, the direction of change in the emerging world seems fundamentally reassuring. After a crisis that was in a sense the result of a failure to manage the early stage of financial integration, governments in emerging markets have established a record of credible fiscal and monetary policy management, built more substantial cushions of insurance against potential shocks in external reserves, restructured the currency denomination, maturity and composition of their debts to make them less vulnerable to volatility, and begun to build deeper and stronger domestic financial systems. These changes make it more likely that the progress now underway toward further financial integration - as they move to more open capital markets and more flexible exchange rate systems - will bring substantial benefits in terms of growth and fewer risks in terms of financial stress. The stronger foundation now in place will make the next wave of financial integration more successful. The policy achievements of the last decade are enormously consequential for the people who live in emerging markets. If the progress is sustained, the reduced vulnerability to financial crisis and the enhanced efficiency of resource allocation have the potential to dramatically increase long-run growth and living standards in these countries.