Almost half of the world’s population still doesn’t use a bank account
Friday, June 8, 2018
By Dan Kopf
As the hype around cryptocurrencies and mobile payments grows, you might think that most people at least have a basic bank account. You’d be wrong.
The World Bank recently released data on the state of global financial inclusion, and the results are eye-opening. The bank’s triennial survey shows that while the number of people around the world with a formal bank account rose from 61% in 2014 to 67% in 2017, but this is somewhat misleading. The truth is that the ranks of the banked barely budged. More than 80% of the recent gain is made up of accounts inactive over the past year. In terms of active accounts, the share of the banked grew from 52% to 53%. The data is based on a survey of over 150,000 people across the world.
Photo courtesy of AMISOM Public Information.
Source: Quartz (link opens in a new window)
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