GO TO BOX 1.3 <!-- Start of picture text --> The urban-rural gap<br>In developing economies the unbanked live predominantly in rural areas. But precisely<br>quantifying the urban-rural gap presents difficulties.<br>For one thing, distinguishing between urban and rural areas is not straightforward—should<br>the distinction be based solely on population, on the availability of certain services and<br>infrastructure, or on subjective measures such as the judgment of the interviewer or<br>respondent? This is especially challenging in a cross-country context; what might be<br>considered rural in Bangladesh or India, for example, might be considered urban in less<br>populous countries. The Gallup World Poll—the survey to which the Global Findex ques-<br>tionnaire is added—uses different approaches across countries to account for country-<br>specific characteristics, which makes it difficult to create a consistent definition of the<br>urban-rural divide at the global and regional level.<br>Another challenge is that the estimates of account ownership for urban populations are<br>often imprecise. The Gallup World Poll surveys a relatively small sample of about 1,000<br>individuals in most countries, and in those with a predominantly rural population—includ-<br>ing many Sub-Saharan African countries—this often means that the number of urban<br>observations is very small, resulting in estimates with large margins of error.<br>Moreover, since 2011 Gallup, Inc. has changed its methodology in a number of countries<br>to improve the within-country geographical representativeness of samples. For some<br>countries this has increased the challenges in making a meaningful comparison of ac-<br>count ownership in rural areas over time. Two countries where a consistent methodology<br>does allow such comparison are China and India (box 1.3).<br>For all these reasons, the 2014 Global Findex database provides estimates for account<br>penetration in rural populations but not urban populations and offers no comparisons<br>of 2011 and 2014 data on rural account penetration at the global or regional level.<br>How and how often financial institution accounts are accessed<br>How do account holders access their ac- FIGURE 1.9<br>counts at financial institutions—and how Frequency of deposits by account holders<br>Adults with a financial institution account by number of deposits<br>frequently? This section documents how in a typical month (%), 2014<br>often people deposit or withdraw money 0 20 40 60 80 100<br>and what means they use to access their East Asia & Pacific<br>accounts when making a withdrawal or Europe & Central Asia<br>another type of financial transaction. 8 High-income OECD economies<br>How often do account holders make Latin America & Caribbean<br>deposits or withdrawals? Middle East<br>South Asia<br>In high-income OECD economies in 2014,<br>Sub-Saharan Africa<br>84 percent of adults with an account at 3 or more 1–2 None<br>a financial institution reported making at Note: The categories do not sum to 100 percent because of “don’t know” and “refuse” answers.<br>least one deposit, and 87 percent at least Source: Global Findex database.<br>one withdrawal, in a typical month (figures<br>1.9 and 1.10). In developing economies, by<br>THE GLOBAL FINDEX DATABASE 17<br><!-- End of picture text -->