The national income and product accounts contain two measures of total economic output, measured through an expenditure approach, reported as more-familiar GDP, or an income approach, reported as GDI. These two series generally track each other fairly closely, but research indicates that some independent information about the business cycle can be found in each of the series.
Recent examples in Africa include mobile banking (access to basic payment services through mobile phones), and new players in the financial systems such as deposit taking microfinance institutions, and agency banking (where banks are allowed to engage third parties to provide certain banking services on their behalf without having to put up brick and mortar).