Expanding the reach of financial services to those individuals who do not currently have access is an objective that is fully consistent with the people-centric definition of sustainable growth. Going by the evidence, there is a long way to go in achieving this objective. Chart 12 provides a picture of the current levels of access to different financial products and services.
Bank accounts are relatively widespread, but even in that most basic of services, the gap is quite large. Other services have very low levels of penetration.