Access to Finance: What Does It Mean and How Do Savings Banks Foster Access

Publication Date: Jan 2006
Published by: World Savings Banks Institute (WSBI)
Document Type: Paper (PDF)

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How important are savings banks in ensuring full access?

This paper aims to prove that an economy improves its chances to have full access when a strong savings bank sector or another form of proximity banking is present.

The paper aims to:

• Give an overview of the access to finance for all;
  
• Record the main obstacles to access in different parts of the world;
  
• Create a framework for analyzing available data on access and link this to indicators of wider economic development.
  

It aims to:

• The nature and dimensions of access;
  
• Public and banking sector initiatives to improve access to finance;
  
• The role of the savings bank movement in the provision of financial services to all strata of the population in urban and remote areas.

The paper concludes that:

• Savings banks account for three quarters of the 1.4 billion accessible accounts provided across developing and transition economies;
  
• An economy is unlikely to approach full access unless it has a strong savings bank movement or other proximity banking presence;
  
• Regulators need to recognize that the governments they serve may have more at stake in improving access than commercially run banks;
  
• The performance of the banking system cannot be understood in isolation from the system of political economy in which they operate;
  
• Governments are more likely to do more to improve access by improving the foundations of civil society than by trying to mandate access and interfere with product design.