The 2015 Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard evaluates access to and usage of affordable financial services across 21 geographically and economically diverse countries.

The FDIP employs 33 indicators to comparatively evaluate access to and usage of affordable financial services among people excluded from formal financial services across 21 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, and Zambia. These countries were selected because they have all made recent commitments to financial inclusion and reflect political, economic, and geographic diversity.

FDIP measures progress over time and explores:

1. Do country commitments make a difference in progress toward financial inclusion?

2. To what extent do mobile and other digital technologies advance financial inclusion?

3. What legal, policy, and regulatory approaches promote financial inclusion?

The Scorecard assesses each country using 33 indicators across four dimensions of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of selected basic traditional and digital financial services, including payments and savings. Countries have both an overall score and a score for each of the four dimensions.

The 2015 FDIP Report and Scorecard is the first installment of a series of analysis aimed at comparatively evaluating and analyzing financial inclusion across a diverse set of countries. In addition to scores and rankings, the report includes a snapshot and profile for each country.

The authors’ analysis provides several takeaways about how to best expand financial inclusion across the world:

• Country commitment is fundamental.

• The movement toward digital financial services will accelerate financial inclusion.

• Geography generally matters less than policy, legal, and regulatory changes, although some regional trends in terms of financial services provision are evident.

• Central banks, ministries of finance, ministries of communications, banks, nonbank financial providers, and mobile network operators play major roles in achieving greater financial inclusion.

• Full financial inclusion cannot be achieved without addressing the financial inclusion gender gap.

We hope that this research will provide policymakers, private sector representatives, non-governmental organizations, and other thought leaders with resources that can help improve financial inclusion in the 21 FDIP countries and beyond.