Financial Inclusion: Trends and Determinants

This chapter provides a background on financial inclusion and examines the progress and trends across different indicators of financial inclusion and different macro and income regions. The data show positive growth in different indicators of financial inclusion over recent years; however, the variation across regions and the gap between genders are still considerable. The chapter also reviews factors that could explain variations in financial inclusion across countries and reports key correlations between financial inclusion indicators and selected country characteristics. We find differences in the associations with country characteristics when comparing traditional banking services and mobile money services.