Читать книгу The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries - Группа авторов - Страница 99

Given the evidence on financial exclusion, it therefore remains to be examined as to what alternative sources of credit are relevant, apart from credit from formal sources. In Table 4, we depict these sources of borrowings. The evidence suggests that, on average, ‘family/friends’ typically dominate, with 26% of individuals having accessed credit from these sources in 2017. This factor overwhelms every other consideration in South Africa with closer to 40% of individuals relying on this method for accessing finance. Reliance on private lenders is much more prominent in India, with 4% of individuals having accessed such finance, whereas formal finance is much more important in Russia, its importance having increased from 8% to 14% during this 7-year period.

While the evidence is consistent with the fact that financial access is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure financial inclusion, a much more rigorous analytical framework is necessary to clearly discern this relationship. We turn to this aspect in what follows.