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

Monday, June 27, 2016

Earlier this week, Mexico launched its National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS), which will accelerate access to financial services for the more than half of the population currently left out of the formal and regulated financial system.

44% of adults in Mexico own a bank account, according to the just released Encuesta Nacional de Inclusion Financiera. A national financial inclusion strategy is a roadmap to help a country better plan and focus on its financial inclusion goals.

According to the World Bank Group’s estimates identified in the UFA Progress Tracker, by implementing a national financial inclusion strategy, Mexico will be able to amplify the effectiveness of existing financial inclusion efforts, which can potentially enable an additional 29 million adults to have access to a transaction account and other financial services.

Other interventions, such as opening up the legal and regulatory environment can help enable access to 35 million people that are currently saving or making payments outside of the formal financial system.