Measuring Financial Access through Users' Surveys: Core Concepts, Questions and Indicators

This paper attempts to identify core common elements in measuring levels of financial access, in order to achieve comparability and standardization in measurement.

The note has two purposes:

• To identify simple measures of financial access that include information on the use of financial services, which are comparable across countries;
• To discuss issues relevant to the incorporation of such measures in future user surveys.

The paper states that the aim of an investigation of access is oriented towards diagnosis of the underlying issues that are relevant to policy makers, bankers, etc.;

The paper:

• Provides examples of recently administered surveys on financial access undertaken at The World Bank and on India;
• Includes relevant examples from other countries;
• Recommends incorporating the core concepts and measures in more broad-based surveys of consumption, expenditure and income.

The paper discusses:

• The limits of the universe over which measures are to be defined;
• The principles underlying the construction of financial access indicators, core questions on access, and core indicators;
• The practical application of indicators in surveys.

In conclusion, the paper states that:

• The final selection of indicators requires empirical validation of relevance and feasibility;
• A deeper understanding of financial access is needed for the purpose of policy;
• The standardization of a wider spectrum of the questionnaires used for data collection would be useful.