Launch of the G20 Basic Set of Financial Inclusion Indicators

11/25/2013 - 1:04pm

The G20 Basic Set of Financial Inclusion Indicators was officially launched on April 21, 2013, during the 2013 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Endorsed by the G20 Leaders at their Los Cabos Summit in June 2012, the Basic Set provides a comprehensive framework for measuring the state of financial inclusion. An interactive website featuring the Basic Set data was unveiled during the launch event, providing financial inclusion indicator data for up to 192 countries. 

The aim of the Basic Set is to assist countries in achieving their financial inclusion goals by providing a strong foundation for measuring financial inclusion. The Basic Set features five categories of indicators that measure two dimensions of financial inclusion – access and usage – with a focus on loan and deposit services.  
 
Developed by the Data and Measurement Subgroup of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) and its implementing partners, the Basic Set builds on existing data measurement efforts of national governments and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). By focusing on a few key indicators, the Basic Set promotes harmonization of indicators and their definitions to make cross-country comparisons possible and to provide policymakers with measurement tools in their efforts to advance financial inclusion. 
 
Over time, new indicators that provide deeper coverage of all financial services and various delivery channels as well as measures of quality will be developed so as to provide a more complete picture of financial inclusion. 
 
Ideally, every country will collect and monitor its own financial inclusion indicators. The Basic Set lists appropriate data sources when country-level data is not available. They include the International Monetary Fund’s 2012 Financial Access Survey (FAS) and the World Bank’s Global Findex  and Enterprise Surveys.  
 
As committed at the time of the endorsement of the Basic Set, the GPFI developed a more comprehensive and holistic set of financial inclusion indicators, with the aim of deepening the understanding of the financial inclusion landscape. At their Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 5-6, 2013, the G20 Leaders endorsed the G20 Financial Inclusion Indicators designed to assess the state of financial inclusion by measuring access to, use and quality of financial services. Read more here