Financial inclusion and exclusion across Mexican municipalities

Abstract

Although in recent years there has been a growth in banking services in Mexico, there is still a significant delay in terms of financial inclusion, which is also very uneven across municipalities. In this context, this paper analyses some of the factors that determine the probability of a municipality being financially included. The results show that financially included municipalities have a large number of inhabitants and high levels of income and education. The analysis also distinguishes between municipalities according to the region in which they are located and to their type of population. In general, rural and in transition municipalities are the least financially included, together with the municipalities located in the Sur region of the country. For these types of municipalities, results also show that both population and the Human Development Index (HDI) are important in determining the probability of being financially included. However, for urban municipalities, HDI is more important than the level of population as a factor influencing financial inclusion.