Читать книгу The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries - Группа авторов - Страница 96

To carefully examine financial inclusion in the BRICS, we look at measures of financial inclusion from two different perspectives. Accordingly, we focus on three main indicators, in line with Demirguc Kunt and Klapper (2013) and Demirguc Kunt et al. (2015). The first and most traditional one is the ownership of account at a financial institution. This measure focuses on financial access; it does not consider whether the account has been used or not. To rectify this shortcoming, we buttress this with two additional measures focusing on use: first, the saving behavior at a formal financial institution and, second, the use of bank credit. The former captures the willingness of savers (asset side of their balance sheet) to save at a formal financial institution relative to alternate forms of savings. The second looks at their liability side and examines their willingness to borrow bank finance. In essence, these measures comprise the basic triad of financial inclusion: a formal account serves as an entry key to the banking industry because it enables the individual to open a savings account and apply for a loan.

Between 2011 and 2017, most of these measures have witnessed a discernible rise (Table 1). To illustrate, 66% of Chinese individuals had a formal finance account in 2011; this increased to nearly 80% by 2014 and has remained at that level since. Only 56% of individuals in Brazil and 54% in South Africa had a formal account in 2011; these increased by nearly 14 percentage points in both countries in 2017.

In terms of use, the picture is much less persuasive. On average, 14% of Indian individuals saved at a financial institution in the past 12 months in 2014, up just 2 percentage points since 2011. By 2017, this had increased to 20%. The figure is however much lower than the global average of 27%.

Figure 1:Geographic distribution of countries with financial inclusion strategy.

Notes: The map is for illustration purposes only. The actual geographical boundaries are not confirmed.

Source: Economist Intelligence Unit, London.

Table 1:Key indicators of financial inclusion for BRICS (Age 15+).

The situation is very much different as regards the use of formal credit. Just around 14% of the individuals in Russia reported having obtained formal credit in 2017, the highest in the sample, with the global average being 11%. In India, only 7% of individuals borrowed from a financial institution in 2017, the lowest among the BRICS.

On the whole, the evidence is consistent with the view that financial access is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure financial inclusion.