Financial Services for the Poor: Household Survey Sources and Gaps in Borrowing and Saving

This study presents an inventory of available household survey data on access to financial services in Latin America and the Caribbean. It reviews more than 400 household surveys available from the MECOVI database and offers suggestions on improving household surveys to better track financial service availability. The paper highlights the large gaps in access to financial services between poor and non poor households, rural and urban areas and households with and without a microenterprise. The study also analyzes gender gaps at the individual level. Findings indicate that:

• Poor people interact with the formal financial sector, but at significantly lower rates than the non poor;
• Large gaps exist between urban and rural areas and between genders, in household access to savings and credit services;
• Higher percentage of households with a microenterprise have access to formal credit but a lower percentage have access to formal savings compared to households without a microenterprise;
• Households with an employer have higher access rates to formal credit and savings than do households without an employer;
• These gaps decrease in the case of informal credit;
• Women make less use of credit from both formal and informal sources than men.