IMF Releases the 2016 Financial Access Survey, A Key Tool to Foster Financial Inclusion

IMF News, October 3, 2016

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Canonical URL: IMF Releases the 2016 Financial Access Survey, A Key Tool to Foster Financial Inclusion

Press Release No. 16/441; October 3, 2016; IMF Communications Department.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the results of the seventh annual Financial Access Survey (FAS).
The FAS provides administrative-data-based indicators on availability and use of financial products (deposit accounts, loans, insurance policies) by individuals and firms across the globe.
Data sources include traditional financial service providers (commercial banks, microfinance institutions, other deposit-taking institutions) and providers of digital financial services (mobile money).

The FAS database contains more than 150 series for up to 189 economies spanning the period 2004-15.
The latest FAS data and accompanying metadata are available free of charge on the IMF website.
The FAS has been conducted since 2009.
Financial support for the FAS has been provided by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The FAS has been an official recognized source of the G-20 Financial Inclusion Indicators since those indicators were launched in 2012.
The role of digital financial services in promoting financial inclusion was explicitly recognized under the Chinese G-20 Presidency, leading to a revision and expansion of the G-20 Financial Inclusion Indicators.
The FAS information can help policymakers identify opportunities to foster financial inclusion and allows analysts to study linkages between financial inclusion and financial stability, income inequality, and economic growth.

Digital financial services are gaining traction in an increasing number of economies, with differing recent experiences across countries.
Example comparisons:
- In economies where mobile money services have been available for eight years or more (such as Malaysia or Zambia), there is on average one mobile money account for every three adults.
- In economies where mobile money services only became available in the past few years (such as Guyana and Solomon Islands), accounts are not yet as widespread, but take-up rates are promising.
Growth metric: On average the number of mobile money accounts per adult grew by 2 percent annually over the past three years.

Growing interest in gender-related statistics on financial inclusion prompted a recent small survey of national authorities to assess capacity to compile and disseminate these statistics from administrative sources.
The results of this pilot will be made available on the FAS website (http://data.imf.org/FAS) later this year.

IMF Press Release No. 16/441, October 3, 2016.