Unbanked populations have dropped

The world’s unbanked population dropped by 20 percent between 2011 and 2014, as 700 million adults became account holders, according to a new report from the World Bank.

The agency’s latest Global Findex report credits this to increased penetration of financial services in developing economies, and also to innovations such as mobile money. Mobile money services like M-Pesa, for example, have driven rapid expansion of financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the only region where, on average, more than 10 percent of adults in each country reported having a mobile money account.

Worldwide, the percentage of adults who had access to an account enabling money storage and electronic payments increased to 62 percent in 2014, from 51 percent in 2011.

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