Financial Access Indicators - About the Report

Financial inclusion—providing access to financial services for all—has gained prominence in the past few years as a policy objective for national policymakers, multilateral institutions, and others in the development field. The United Nations designated 2005 the International Year of Microcredit, adopting the goal of building inclusive financial systems and more recently the G-20 has committed to improving access to financial services to the poor.

To assist policymakers in designing effective policies and tracking global progress in financial inclusion, the World Bank collected the first set of indicators of financial access in countries around the world in 2005 and updated these indicators for selected countries in 2008.

Building on this work, Financial Access introduces new data from a survey of financial regulators in about 150 countries. It presents indicators of access to savings, credit, and payment services in banks and in regulated nonbank financial institutions—reviewing some policy initiatives that support financial inclusion.

Financial Access 2010 report is the second in an annual series documenting access to financial services around the world, it is intended for a broad audience of policymakers, researchers, multilateral and bilateral investors, and practitioners.

In addition to measuring the state of financial access, Financial Access 2010 expands upon last year by reviewing three policy areas relevant to the current financial access debate, namely financial inclusion mandates, consumer protection in financial services and access to finance by SMEs.