Therefore both the private and public sectors, need to intensify efforts to accelerate meaningful and effective efforts in the drive for greater financial inclusion. In Malaysia, our priorities are to enhance greater access to digital financial services, as well as to enable the underserved to benefit from increased convenience, greater efficiency and lower cost. Another important priority would be financial education for the newly banked, to ensure that new entrants into the financial system behave responsibly and do not suffer the unintended consequences of being over-indebted. For ASEAN, financial inclusion is an increasing priority because it is estimated that 260 million adults in the region still do not have access to the formal financial system, while 45 million small businesses have difficulties in accessing financing. To overcome this challenge, ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in March 2015 decided to elevate financial inclusion to be a policy priority. It is our shared vision that every person and every small business in the region can participate and benefit from the opportunities that will be brought forth by greater regional integration under the ASEAN Economic Community. Conclusion Our collective efforts in advancing financial inclusion have yielded many significant achievements. The Global Findex Database 2014 will be an important contribution to more  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  optimal and impactful financial inclusion policy making and implementation. Bank Negara Malaysia would like to congratulate the World Bank Group on this accomplishment.

This Accord has formulated the measuring tools for the monitoring of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that has assisted policy makers in implementing and refining strategies to assist the underserved. Immense progress has also been made in gathering accurate and timely data for financial inclusion KPIs. Traditionally, financial inclusion data has been scarce as they have depended on national user surveys. In this regard, the Global Findex has made a very significant contribution to financial inclusion policymakers and practitioners, as it is a database of more than 150,000 survey responses from more than 140 countries across the world. With the data from the Global Findex, which is updated every 3 years, we are now able to compare in a consistent manner the financial inclusion performance across countries and analyse trends over time. The availability of country performance data not only provides peer pressure that spurs action, but also provides empirical evidence on which financial inclusion policy actions are delivering the most optimal impact. The analysis of the Global Findex data has provided strong evidence that countries which adopted mobile banking outperformed those that did not. Such empirical evidence facilitates policymakers and the private sector in their drive for greater financial inclusion. Priorities for greater financial inclusion In these recent years, there has been significant progress in advancing financial inclusion across the world. According to the Global Findex, 700 million adults have gained access to formal financial services since 2011. This is indeed a significant achievement. Yet 2 billion adults today are still unbanked.