One of the main objectives of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic is to promote financial inclusion, that is, to ensure that all people and companies access and make use of financial services and products to make payments, save or demand a loan, at a reasonable cost and in a safe way for the consumer and sustainable for suppliers. In this way, it also contributes to its purpose of promoting economic development with social equity established in Article 3 of its Organic Charter.
The pursuit of this goal is in addition to the efforts made at the global level, where financial inclusion has been recognized by governments, international organizations and think tanks as a priority. The integration of all households and businesses into financial services is a necessary step towards deeper and more equitable financial systems that promote greater economic growth and sustainable development of nations.
In this scenario, a growing number of countries (including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico) have designed and implemented national financial inclusion strategies. They necessarily contemplated the preparation of reports and metrics on the matter, which is in addition to those already provided by the relevant international organizations: Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
In Argentina, the Financial Inclusion Coordination Council, of which the Central Bank is a member, has disseminated in August of this year the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion to promote responsible and sustainable access and use of financial services in Argentine territory. It comprises a monitoring and evaluation framework with performance indicators to periodically measure the progress and impact of public policies.
In this framework, the Central Bank has decided to publish the first Financial Inclusion Report (IIF), a biannual report aimed at communicating the state of financial inclusion in the country, the measures adopted in this area and, through specific metrics, monitoring the progress of the population’s financial inclusion. This report analyzes financial inclusion from the dimensions of access to service infrastructure and basic financial products, their use or degree of use and quality, which concerns the satisfaction of users’ needs and their degree of understanding of financial products.
The next edition of the IIF will be published in April 2020.
