Determinants of and barriers to people’s financial inclusion in Mexico
Individuals’ access to finance is particularly low in Mexico. Widening access to finance
would boost growth and inclusion. This paper uses microdata from the National Survey
for Financial Inclusion to assess the drivers of and the barriers to people’s financial
inclusion in Mexico. Results show that working in the formal sector, the level of
wealth and income, educational attainment, and age are the socio-economic characteristics
that most affect the likelihood of holding any formal financial product. The relative
importance of these characteristics, however, varies across financial products. Economic
barriers to individuals’ financial inclusion are strongly associated with widespread
informality and a low level of education and income. These results suggest that financial
education programmes and credit registries considering a wider set of data to assess
informal workers' credit worthiness would be promising avenues to help more Mexicans
access financial services.
Published on October 10, 2022
In series:OECD Economics Department Working Papersview more titles