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

Friday, October 20, 2017

According to the 2014–2016 Tanzania National Financial Inclusion Framework the level of formal financial access in the rural areas of Tanzania is 8.5% compared to 23% in the urban areas and totally excluded rural population is 60% compared to 45% in urban areas.

The ninth edition of the Tanzania Economic Update highlighted the country’s extraordinary progress in bringing financial services to 62% of its population today compared to 11% in 2006, making it a regional leader in the use of digital financial services and putting it on a solid footing to achieve Universal Financial Access by 2020

Hundreds of thousands of low-income people have gained access to financial products including credit, savings and money transfers through leveraging of technology to bring financial services closer to the unbanked.

Despite these significant developments, full financial sector integration continues to elude Tanzania, and the argument is that to promote and sustain financial inclusion growth there must be mobilization of savings to allocate them to households, businesses, and government for productive investments.

Photo courtesy of Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion.