for expanding account ownership that is potentially easier to realize. These people are already comfortable with digital payments and already in contact with a financial service provider—whether a financial institution, a mobile money agent, or a money transfer operator. So they are likely to find it easier to make the transition to using an account than those who have never made digital payments and might be skeptical about entrusting their money to financial service providers. But the challenge will be to design a product that can compete with an OTC transaction on costs: one reason people use OTC transactions rather than accounts to send domestic remittances electronically is that it can be less expensive.<sup>20</sup> Some countries could see big increases in account ownership with a shift from OTC transactions to accounts. In Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, and Senegal, for example, the share of adults with an account could more than double to about 35 percent if all unbanked adults who now send or receive remittance payments through a money transfer operator instead did so through an account.

## Shifting semiformal savings into accounts

Yet another opportunity for expanding financial inclusion rests in shifting the semiformal savings of those who are unbanked into accounts. Across the developing world, only about 4 percent of adults—160 million people—are unbanked but save by using a savings club or a person outside the family. But in Sub-Saharan Africa the share is three times that size. On average in the region’s economies, 13 percent of adults are unbanked and save semiformally. Shifting their savings from savings clubs into accounts could increase account penetration in the region from 34 percent to up to 47 percent and add up to 70 million adults to the ranks of those with an account.

The challenge again will be to design an account that makes using a financial institution to save at least as easy, affordable, convenient, and proximate as using semiformal mechanisms to do so.

# Opportunities for increasing the use of accounts among the banked

Account ownership is an important first step toward financial inclusion. But once people have an account, the next step is to ensure that they actually use their account and in ways that allow them to fully benefit from having one. As the analysis of account use in this chapter shows, three-quarters of account holders already use their account to save, to make at least three withdrawals a month, or to make or receive electronic payments. Yet there is still much potential for increasing the use of accounts among those who have one, especially in developing economies.

Indeed, Global Findex data point to several big opportunities for doing so. Each centers on moving a financial transaction that people already make, but in cash or through informal means, into an account they already own.<sup>21</sup> Just as with expanding account ownership among the unbanked, this presents challenges. Among them is the need for the private sector to design products that make it at least as easy, convenient, and affordable for people to use their existing account as it is to use alternatives.

> THE GLOBAL FINDEX DATABASE 67