The Global Findex Database 2021 survey headline findings on financial wellbeing

Beyond the ways in which payments, savings, and credit could help lower poverty rates, increase consumption, and enable more spending on education, health, and income-generating opportunities, development goals also include improvements in well-being. The Global Findex 2021 defines well-being as a person’s financial resilience (the ability to deal with an unexpected financial event), level of stress generated by common financial issues, and level of confidence in using financial resources. Financial inclusion can support well-being by helping people feel secure in their financial future.

The Global Findex 2021 survey assessed financial resilience by asking respondents whether they could come up with extra funds if they had a significant unexpected expense and where they would get the money. The headline results were as follows:

• Fifty-five percent of adults in developing economies could access extra funds within 30 days without much difficulty.
• Family and friends are the first-line source of extra funds for 30 percent of adults in developing economies, but nearly half of those say the money would be hard to get. Reliance on family and friends is as high as 50 percent in the Middle East and North Africa.

• Women and the poor are less likely than men and richer individuals to successfully raise extra funds, and they are more likely to rely on family and friends as their go-to source.

• Adults in developing economies who save formally and use savings as their first-line source of funds in an emergency are most likely to get money when they need it.

Global Findex 2021 survey respondents in developing economies also answered questions about how worried they were about monthly bills, education fees, health care expenses, and the costs of old age. Specifically:

• 63 percent of adults in developing economies are very worried about one or more common financial expenses; in high-income economies, only 33 percent of adults are very worried.

• About 50 percent of adults in developing economies are very worried about covering health expenses in the event of a major illness or accident, and over 35 percent say health care costs are their biggest worry.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, worry over school fees dominates as the most common worry overall (for 54 percent of adults) and the biggest worry for about 30 percent.

• In developing economies, 82 percent of adults are very worried (52 percent) or somewhat worried (30 percent) about the continued financial toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As for financial confidence, two key findings stand out:

• About one-third of mobile money account holders in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot use their account without help from a family member or an agent.
• One in five adults in developing economies who receive a wage payment into an account (excluding mobile money) paid unexpected fees on the transaction.

These findings collectively point to a key area of concern related to financial inclusion: poor and financially inexperienced users may not be able to benefit from account ownership if they do not understand how to use financial services in a way that optimizes benefits and avoids consumer protection risks such as high and hidden fees, overindebtedness, fraud, and discrimination.