2.6.1 Globally, about 85 million unbanked adults received government payments in cash

Digitalizing government payments

The Global Findex 2021 survey data reveal that digitalizing government payments has already resulted in higher account ownership. Among adults in developing economies with an account at a financial institution, roughly 865 million opened their first account to receive money from the government, including 423 million women. Governments send several types of payments to people. They pay wages to public sector employees, distribute public sector pensions, and provide those receiving social benefits with transfers. Globally, about 5 percent of unbanked adults—85 million people—received such payments in cash (map 2.6.1). They included about 45 million women, as well as 40 million adults with incomes in the poorest 40 percent of households in their economy. Among the unbanked adults receiving government payments in cash, many have a mobile phone, suggesting both potential and means for increasing account ownership by moving these payments into accounts. Although the overwhelming majority of public sector wages are paid into an account (less than 1 percent of unbanked adults around the world received a government wage payment in cash), important opportunities remain in some economies to increase account ownership by paying government transfers and pensions into accounts. In Cambodia and the Philippines, about 20 percent of unbanked adults—or about 10 percent of all adults—received government transfer payments in cash (figure 2.6.2). More than 80 percent of the unbanked receiving such payments in these economies have a mobile phone. In Albania and Uzbekistan, 16 percent of unbanked adults—or nearly 10 percent of all adults—received pension payments in cash. In Moldova and Romania, the share of unbanked adults receiving a pension payment is even higher, 24 percent and 33 percent, respectively, translating into a similar share of nearly 10 percent of all adults in these economies who could be brought into the formal financial system if these payments were paid into accounts. Among the adults receiving a government pension payment in cash in these four Europe and Central Asia economies, at least half have a mobile phone.

MAP 2.6.1 Globally, about 85 million unbanked adults received government payments in cash

Adults without an account receiving government payments in the past year in cash only, 2021

Source: Global Findex Database 2021. Note: Public sector wage questions were not posed in China in 2021. Data are not displayed for economies where the share of adults without an account was 5 percent or less or the share receiving government payments was 10 percent or less or for economies for which no data are available.