Source: UN Radio
More than half of the world’s poor don’t use banks, leaving them vulnerable to loss, theft and exploitation. More than half of the world's poorest people don't use banks, leaving them vulnerable to theft, loss of money and exploitation, according to a new Gallup Poll conducted for The World Bank. Hardest hit are poor women, who may not have control over their own assets.


A new World Bank study using data collected by Gallup says women and the rural poor are particularly likely to have no bank account.

In many countries over 95% of adults are among these so-called “unbanked”. 

 Leora Klapper, Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank “We also found interestingly that women most commonly report that they use someone else’s account, suggesting they don’t have ownership over their accounts and their own assets the way men do.”

The Gallup data is part of the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion project – or - Global Findex.

Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Findex finds that most adults earning less than $2 a day save money in informal ways.

Gebremichael Gidey, Ethiopian Farmer “People used to put the available limited money at home in pots, under the mattress and other materials. The saved money used to be eaten or ruined by rats, termites and other things.”

Pests, fires or theft aren’t the only dangers.

No bank account also means no interest on savings, no credit history, no mortgages and often higher fees for loans.

Factors such as these mean the “unbanked” are less able to start their own business, and are more likely to remain poor. But for some, the costs of having a bank account seem to outweigh the benefits.

 Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Director, DEC and Chief Economist, FPD, World Bank “Nearly two thirds of the people who say they don’t use an account says it’s because they don’t have enough money.  About a quarter of the people complain about high costs of banking…EDIT …and nearly the same amount complain about the distance travelling to a bank, which means long bus rides for many.”

So efforts are under way to make banking more accessible to more people. Cell phones are also a way to shortcut the scarcity of physical bank buildings in less developed areas.

In Kenya, more than two-thirds of adults say they use their mobile phones for money transactions such as paying bills and making deposits.

The current and future rounds of Global Findex data can be used to track the effects of financial inclusion policies globally and develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how people around the world save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk.