Financial Inclusion & the Unbanked
Account ownership has climbed from 51% of adults in 2011 to 79% in 2024, driven heavily by mobile money in the developing world. Yet about 1.3 billion adults remain unbanked, most of them women and concentrated in a handful of large economies. These charts track the progress and the gaps using the World Bank's Global Findex Database.
Key Financial Inclusion Insights
Two decades of fast progress
The share of adults worldwide with an account rose from 51% in 2011 to 76% in 2021 and 79% in 2024 — one of the fastest improvements in any development indicator.
1.3 billion still left out
Around 1.3 billion adults have no account at all in 2024. Roughly 650 million of them live in just eight economies, including India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria.
Women are most excluded
Account ownership reaches 81% of men but 77% of women, and women make up about 55% of all unbanked adults — roughly 700 million people.
Mobile money leads in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest mobile money use, with 40% of adults holding a mobile money account in 2024, up from 27% in 2021.
Global Account Ownership, 2011-2024
Share of adults (age 15+) worldwide with an account at a bank or other financial institution or a mobile money provider.
Key Finding: Account ownership rose from 51% of adults in 2011 to 79% in 2024 — a 28 percentage-point gain in just over a decade.
Account Ownership by Region, 2024
Share of adults with an account, by region and the global average. High-income economies are near-universal while parts of Africa and the Middle East lag.
Key Finding: High-income economies reach 95% account ownership, versus 58% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 53% in the Middle East and North Africa.
Where the Unbanked Live, 2024
Of the roughly 1.3 billion unbanked adults worldwide, about half live in just eight large economies.
Key Finding: About 650 million unbanked adults — half the global total — live in eight economies: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
The Gender Gap in Account Ownership, 2024
Share of men versus women with a financial account worldwide. The gap has narrowed but persists.
Key Finding: 81% of men hold an account compared with 77% of women, a 4 percentage-point global gender gap.
Mobile Money Account Ownership, 2021 vs 2024
Share of adults with a mobile money account in Sub-Saharan Africa and worldwide. Mobile money is the main driver of new accounts in Africa.
Key Finding: Mobile money ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa jumped from 27% in 2021 to 40% in 2024, far above the 15% global rate.
Understanding Financial Inclusion Data
What account ownership means
Account ownership is the headline measure of financial inclusion: the share of adults (age 15 and older) who report having an account, either at a bank or other regulated financial institution or with a mobile money provider, or both. An adult is counted as unbanked when they have neither type of account.
The Global Findex survey
The figures come from the World Bank's Global Findex Database, the world's most comprehensive dataset on how adults save, borrow, make payments and manage risk. The 2025 edition is based on nationally representative surveys of about 148,000 adults across 141 economies, conducted during 2024. Earlier waves were collected in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021, allowing comparisons over time.
Mobile money
Mobile money accounts let people store value and send or receive payments through a mobile phone without a traditional bank account. They are tracked separately from bank accounts because they have driven much of the recent growth in inclusion, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 40% of adults now have one — the highest rate of any region.
Caveats
Findex data are self-reported and surveys are run roughly every three years, so figures are estimates rather than exact counts. Owning an account does not guarantee active use: many accounts sit dormant, and headline ownership can overstate real financial participation. Regional figures shown here generally exclude high-income economies unless labelled otherwise, and small differences between years can fall within the survey margin of error.