Nearly eight in 10 adults in China now have a bank account, according to the 2014 Global Findex. This represents a 15 percentage point increase since 2011. According to the survey, the number of global unbanked has decreased from 2.5 billion to 2 billion in the past three years, and China’s progress has been a major driver of this change. In fact, the 2014 Findex found that of the world’s 500 million newly banked adults, more than one third (180 million) live in China.
Three positive trends emerge from this data.
1. Rural and poor people constitute many of the “newly banked” adults.
Sixty-six percent of the poorest quintile in China now have a formal account which represents an increase of 28 percentage points over the past three years. The rural population – which includes most of the poor in China - also saw a major increase of 20 percentage points with 74 percent of rural adults formally banked in 2014. Women have significantly benefitted from this growth and are now almost as financially included as men.
Source: World Bank Findex 2014