The 2014 Global Findex

I’m thrilled to announce the April 15 launch of the 2014 Global Findex database, the world’s most comprehensive gauge of global financial inclusion. Drawing on interviews with almost 150,000 adults in over 140 countries, the Global Findex tracks worldwide changes in account ownership and explores how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Financial inclusion, measured by the Global Findex as having an account that allows adults to store money and make and receive electronic payments, is critical to ending global poverty. Studies show that broader access to, and participation in, the financial system can boost job creation, increase investments in education, and directly help poor people manage risk and absorb financial shocks.

Our research updates the first Global Findex database, which the World Bank launched in 2011 in partnership with Gallup, Inc. and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Their continued support made it possible to add new features to the second edition of the database, including more nuanced questions on mobile banking and an extended module on domestic payments. The 2014 Findex for the first time sheds light on how adults use accounts — and what can be done to have people become more active users of the financial system.

There is much good news to report…. But to learn the details, you’ll need to follow our data launch during the annual World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings.

On April 17, we will also unveil The Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion, a compendium of Global Findex statistics graced with a foreword by Her Majesty, Queen Máxima of The Netherlands.

Media representatives: please get in touch {rong@worldbank.org} for more information.