Finclusion Lab: State of the Data Report 2015

While the Global Findex and the IMF’s Financial Access Survey are beginning to fill the gap in national-level measures of financial inclusion, MIX's FINclusion Lab aims to address the subnational aspects of measuring a country’s progress towards financial inclusion, incorporating state- and district-level information to provide a more granular picture of where financial inclusion is surpassing or falling behind the national average. Including these geo-spatial components of both supply and demand for financial services provides a nuanced picture of how market characteristics may influence the types or relative numbers of financial service providers present in a given geographic area. It also allows the providers themselves to more accurately assess demand for services and can inform new products or delivery channels.

This first data scoping exercise revealed some important lessons both in terms of which data is currently available across varying countries and continents and the importance of building more robust and regular financial inclusion measurement systems. With data and measurement increasingly valued in the global quest for financial inclusion, there is an opportunity to support local stakeholders in building sustainable data collection and management systems that promise a systematic means to diagnosing the most pressing barriers to financial inclusion.