elaboration of the other surveys discussed, but nevertheless of considerable value. (For instance it revealed a sharp decline in the number of bank account holders (from18 to 6 per cent of the population) in the nine years since the previous survey. Research exploring the correlation between banking and other household characteristics would be possible, though (as is all too often the case), this does not seem to have been carried out so far.

# _Stand-alone financial access surveys_

Recently, increased interest in financial access has prompted a number of stand-alone financial access surveys. Evidently, such surveys can probe more deeply questions such as “why do you have a deposit account?”. On the other hand, as mentioned, cost may make them thinner in terms of control variables. We mention three important recent exercises.

A World Bank initiative to improve information on household access to finance in selected Latin American countries is exemplified by work on _Brazil_ (Kumar, 2004)<sup>16</sup> surveyed about 1250 urban households asking similar questions on deposit and credit as in the general survey examples given above from the LSMS, with perhaps more detail, for example on the motivation for household choices and the reasons for being refused credit (though only 9 respondents answered this question!). It also extended into the different purposes for which different retail payments media were used by households. Quite a few control variables were obtained by asking questions about such matters as education, labor force status, housing and ownership of key durables. It proves important to include country-specific institutional detail in some of the questions. For example, more of the respondents reported that they used as their main financial institution not the banks, but the lottery outlets of the Caixa Economia Federal, which provides limited banking services. This is a point that might have been missed if a standard template was imposed, or in the case of if a limited set of financial questions being added to a general household survey.

Econometric analysis of the survey data threw light on a number of issues that might have remained hidden if the results had simply been tabulated, as is so often the case. For example, branch location may be less important than the precise type of housing (overcrowding) as a predictor of whether a household will have access. In addition to income, education, employment status and gender prove to be reliable predictors of financial access both on the deposit and lending side.

In contrast to the Brazil case, rural households were the focus of the recent household survey in two provinces (Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) of _India_ (Basu, 2004). Actually, India had been a pioneer in surveying rural access with the All-India Rural Credit Survey of 1951-2, which was repeated at intervals, but discontinued in 1991. In the 2003 survey 6000 households were surveyed and the questions focused especially on credit allowing a time-series dimension building on the earlier surveys. Source, reason,

> 16 Parallel work is under way for Colombia and Mexico (cf. Caskey et al. 2004).  The list is by no means comprehensive.  In addition to other nationwide household surveys focusing on credit and finance. there have been several confined to rural areas, for example Chaves et al. (2001) for Romania.

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