The Global Findex Database 2021: Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments, and Resilience in the Age of COVID-19

• Worldwide account ownership has reached 76 percent of the global population—and 71 percent of people in developing countries
• The gender gap in account ownership across developing economies has fallen to 6 percentage points from 9 percentage points, where it hovered for many years. 
• Receiving digital payments such as a wage payment, a government transfer, or a domestic remittance, catalyzes the use of other financial services, such as storing, saving, and borrowing money.
• In developing economies, 40 percent of adults who paid utility bills (18 percent of adults ) did so directly from an account. In China, 80 percent of adults made a digital merchant payment, whereas in other developing economies 20% of adults did so.
  

• COVID-19 boosted the adoption of digital financial services: 40 percent of adults in developing economies excluding China who made a digital merchant payment using a card, phone, or the internet, and one-third of adults in developing economies who paid a utility bill directly from an account, did so for the first time after the start of the pandemic.
• Mobile money has become an important enabler of financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa—especially for women—both as a driver of account ownership and of account usage through mobile payments, saving, and borrowing.
• About half of adults in developing economies could access extra funds within 30 days if faced with an unexpected expense.

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