RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In Paraguay, by 2021, only 54% of adults had an account at a bank, other financial institution, or through a mobile money provider. Still, this a 49% increase over what was recorded in 2017, which is equivalent to 5 basis points in 4 years, according to the Global Findex 2022 database.
The report, published by the World Bank, notes that globally, 76% of adults today have an account, up sharply from 51% a decade ago.
In developing economies, 71% of adults have an account, up from 42% a decade ago. So far, two-thirds of adults worldwide have made or received a digital payment, while the proportion in developing countries rose from 35% in 2014 to 57% in 2021.
Latin America and the Caribbean saw an 18 percentage point increase in account ownership since 2017, the largest increase of all developing regions globally; as a result, 73% of the adult population held an account in 2021.
Digital payments are crucial, as 40% of adults made digital payments to retail merchants, including 14% of adults who made such transactions for the first time during the pandemic.
PANDEMIC
Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic drove digital adoption for the 15% of adults who made utility bill payments directly from their accounts for the first time during the pandemic, more than double the average for developing economies.
Opportunities still exist for even greater use of digital payments, given that 150 million banked adults made cash-only retail payments, including more than 50 million banked adults in Brazil and 16 million in Colombia.
LATIN AMERICA
In Brazil, 18% of adults paid a utility bill from an account for the first time during the pandemic, while 11% of adults in Argentina did so. In Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru, about 15% of adults paid a utility bill from an account for the first time during the pandemic, representing two-thirds or more of all those who paid utilities by this means.
With information from La Nación