NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Indonesia has far greater number of smokers and mobile phone users than that of bank account holders. This is according to the Director General of Bank Mandiri, Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Budi shared that one of the primary aims of financial inclusion is to increase the people’s welfare. Access to bank services would allow people to save and apply credit from the bank.

“(The total number of bank account holders) Lost out to the number of HP (hand phone) owners, lost out to (the number of) smokers,” said Budi Gunadi Sadikin as quoted by Kompas.com last Thursday (23 Oct 2014).

Currently, there are only 70 million Indonesians who have a bank account. Based on a telecommunication company report, Gudi shared that the current number of mobile phone users in the country has reached 220 million.