Corporate Governance and Access to Finance - ESBG

Chart 3.Percent of Total adults who do not use formal financialservices by regionSource: own elaboration from Financial Access Initiative (www.financialaccess.org).The average size of deposits is also considered a relevant indicator foraccess. The rationale is that, as the financial system reaches progressivelylower segments of the population, the accounts tend to have a smalleraverage size. This relationship may be affected by the existence of dormantaccounts, the co-existence of household and business accounts, andvariations on the average number of deposits that a person holds, estimatedby CGAP, as mentioned above, in 3. Also, to facilitate internationalcomparison, the average size of deposits is corrected by per capitaincome, as an indicator of the countries level of development.As in the case of deposits, a higher average loan size is generally interpretedas reflecting a bias towards higher income customers. As financialdeepening advances and financial markets develop, more people haveaccess to credit and the size of the average loan (relative to the country’sper capita income, as in the case of deposits) decreases.For the purpose of the present study, and in line with other internationalreports, the three abovementioned indicators of Access to Finance areused: (i) the number of deposits per 1,000 adults, (ii) the average size ofdeposits and, for those WSBI members that provide credit, (iii) theaverage size of loans. Table 10 presents a summary of the relevant dataon Access to Finance provided by the five selected Case Studies.72