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This paper leverages the IMF’s Financial Access Survey (FAS) database to construct a new composite index of financial inclusion. The topic of financial inclusion has gathered significant attention in recent years. Various initiatives have been undertaken by central banks both in advanced and developing countries to promote financial inclusion. The issue has also attracted increasing interest from the international community with the G-20, IMF, and World Bank Group assuming an active role in developing and collecting financial inclusion data and promoting best practices to improve financial inclusion. There is general recognition among policy makers that financial inclusion plays a significant role in sustaining employment, economic growth, and financial stability. Nonetheless, the issue of its robust measurement is still outstanding. The new composite index uses factor analysis to derive a weighting methodology whose absence has been the most persistent of the criticisms of previous indices. Countries are then ranked based on the new composite index, providing an additional analytical tool which could be used for surveillance and policy purposes on a regular basis.

Finance --- Funding --- Funds --- Economics --- Currency question --- Social aspects --- Banks and Banking --- Finance: General --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Industries: Financial Services --- Index Numbers and Aggregation --- leading indicators --- Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data --- Data Access --- Economic Development: Financial Markets --- Saving and Capital Investment --- Corporate Finance and Governance --- Financial Economics: General --- Banks --- Depository Institutions --- Micro Finance Institutions --- Mortgages --- Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy --- Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions --- Public finance & taxation --- Banking --- Financial inclusion --- Financial services --- Public expenditure review --- Personal income --- Commercial banks --- Financial markets --- Expenditure --- National accounts --- Financial institutions --- Financial services industry --- Expenditures, Public --- Income --- Banks and banking --- Maldives --- Leading indicators