## IMF Releases the 2017 Financial Access Survey, Tracking Access to Financial Services

_IMF News, October 2, 2017_

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**Canonical URL:** [IMF Releases the 2017 Financial Access Survey, Tracking Access to Financial Services](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2017/10/02/pr17383-imf-releases-2017-financial-access-survey)

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: October 2, 2017

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### Overview
- Press Release No. 17/383
- October 2, 2017
- IMF Communications Department, MEDIA RELATIONS — PRESS OFFICER: Pemba Sherpa; Phone: +1 202 623-7100; Email: MEDIA@IMF.org
- The Financial Access Survey (FAS) is in its eighth annual round and collects annual administrative data on indicators tracking financial access from traditional (e.g., commercial banks or other deposit-taking institutions) and digital (e.g., mobile money) financial service providers.

### Key findings on financial access and inclusion
- FAS provides insights on availability and use of financial products such as consumer and firm deposit accounts, loans, and insurance policies across the globe.
- Two Sustainable Development Goals indicators show progress: the number of bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs), with most growth concentrated in Asia.
- Regional disparities:
  - Sub-Saharan Africa has on average five times fewer bank branches and ATMs per adult than the rest of the world.
- Digital financial services expansion:
  - Innovations such as mobile money services continue to make inroads.
  - In Afghanistan, there are now more than six times as many mobile money agents as ATMs, facilitating direct deposit of payroll for civil servants through their mobile phones.

### Gender-disaggregated data and gaps
- Growing demand for more granular data led the FAS to collaborate with national authorities to assess capacity to extract gender-disaggregated financial access statistics from administrative sources.
- Newly available data suggest a financial access gender gap:
  - On average, women hold 40 percent of deposit accounts.
  - On average, women receive a similar proportion of outstanding loans.
- Country-specific progress examples:
  - Malaysia saw its share of female borrowers increase from 37 percent in 2004 to 44 percent in 2016.
- The historical perspective from these data enables policy-relevant research questions, including the causality between loans tailored to women entrepreneurs and the share of female borrowers.

### Data availability and support
- The FAS has been conducted since 2009 with financial support from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- The latest FAS data and country-specific metadata are available free of charge at http://data.imf.org/FAS.

*Source: IMF Press Release No. 17/383, October 2, 2017.*

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## References

- [Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/AFG/index.htm)
- [Malaysia and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/MYS/index.htm)
- [Press Releases](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)
- [PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)
- [http://data.imf.org/FAS](http://data.imf.org/FAS)
- [https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2017/10/02/pr17383-imf-releases-2017-financial-access-survey_