One key component of inclusive development is financial inclusion, an area in which Africa has been lagging behind unlike other continents. At most, one adult out of four in Africa has access to an account in a formal financial institution. The objective of this study is to find out the level of the financial inclusion among 41 African countries on one hand and the level of the financial inclusion among the world six group regions on the other hand. To find out which country or which group region has a higher level or a lower level in the financial inclusion, according to some indicators, such as account at a formal financial institution, access to formal accounts, use of formal accounts, mobile payments, savings, credits patterns, and insurance decision as underlined in the literature review that the latter constituted the principal indicators for inclusive financing, an appropriate and reliable statistical method has been used, such as cluster analysis. The data set was the secondary data taken from the World Bank website; the first data published by the World Bank in 2012 on the global financial inclusion concerning 148 countries in the world. The empirical results from this study reveal that most of African countries with lower levels are low-income countries and those with higher levels remain largely of middle-income countries. Among the world group regions, only Sub-Saharan African region has the low level in five of the seven indicators used in this research, when compared with the other group regions. This study will awaken most African countries including the Sub-Saharan African region to develop strategies to enhance their level in the future in order to reduce poverty and to strengthen their financial system which leads to economic growth.

The issue that futures-trading activity may result in excessive equity volatility has attracted much attention, both academic and regulatory. Many academicians have claimed that the introduction of the futures contracts will lead to an increase in the spot market volatility and destabilize the equity prices. This has also been an important concern for regulators. Many others have argued the contrary and claimed that futures trading will have stabilizing effects on spot prices. There is no theoretical answer that will resolve this debate; proper empirical investigation will give insights on this effect. Many previous empirical studies deal with the developed markets, especially with the US. The number of studies employing emerging market data is quite limited and there are only a handful of studies dealing with the Turkish market. In this study we examine the effect of futures trading on index volatility using the data from an important emerging market: Turkey. Using the Istanbul Stock Exchange 30 (ISE 30) Index data between February 2005 and April 2015, we test the hypothesis that the variance of daily returns in the futures expiration period (9 days before the expiration of the futures contract) is greater than the variance of index returns in the pre-expiration period (10-50 days prior to futures expiration date). The results of the study show that expiration period variance is not greater than pre-expiration variance.

This paper investigates the factors that influence bank profitability. Using static and dynamic panel data techniques, a sample of 86 banks from eight countries making up the West African Economic and Monetary Union over the period 2006-2014 is utilized. framework, the size effect is investigated for both determinants of profitability and CAR models, while the time effect is incorporated in the dynamic framework. In regards to the determinants of bank profitability, the results show evidence of significant effects of bank specific factors, as well as bank macroeconomic factors on profitability in WAEMU except two bank-specific factors (ratios of liquid asset to total deposit and nonperforming asset insignificant. Also, due to less competition in the banking sector, the results point to a significant persistence of profit from year to year. Furthermore, the analysis of the bank size effect confirms evidence of significant economies and discectomies of scale in the bankin sector.

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Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which a corporation has become insolvent and therefore cannot pay its obligations .The purpose of this paper is to assess the default risk or to predict bankruptcy of some public firms listed on the stock Exchange Securities (BRVM) of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). 34 companies from different sectors and sizes have taken place in this study. The main purpose is to measure the performance of these companies that constitute the backbone of the regional economy whether banks or investors can have confidence on them to finance their activities. To perform this study, the 2013 dataset financial statements were taken from the website of the two stock exchanges. Then, Discriminant function named Z-scores model of Altman, financial ratio analysis, and the Principal Component Analysis were used. The results of this study show that out of the 34 public companies, only 8 companies have had good financial performance, and on which financial institutions or investors can have confidence for financing or investment. Among all the companies, the most best performing company was listed in Ghana Stock Exchange. The most problem encountered by 85% of the 34 companies was the liquidity problem. This study will permit investors and banks to put regards on these companies on one side, and to awaken those companies which have realized bad financial performances on the other side.