With 8.2 million bank accounts in Ecuador and a record in credit placement in 2022, what is pending is for more people to access the system

In the world there are 4,273 million people who have bank accounts, that is, 74% of people over 15 years of age. That figure represents a growth of just over 23 percentage points since 2011, globally.

If we look only at Ecuador, the number of people with bank accounts is 8.2 million, that is, 64.2% of people over 15 years of age. This data reveals that there has been a significant growth in terms of the number of accounts of 25.5 percentage points, since in 2011 they were only 38.7% of that segment of the population.

Although the number of accounts has grown, there are several challenges on the subject of access to credit that are still pending in Ecuador. And it is that in 2022 the placement of credit reached a record figure of $29,593 million, 12% more than in 2021. However, people’s access to this credit has been restricted because more volume of credit has been delivered credit, but in fewer hands.

These are part of the data provided by the new Financial Inclusion Map, a portal that contains information from more than 160 countries, as well as the 221 cantons and 24 provinces of Ecuador. The link is https://datalab.asobanca.org.ec/mapa-ec/internal-map.html.

Marco Rodríguez, executive president of the Association of Private Banks of Ecuador (Asobanca), indicated during the presentation that with all this data the web portal seeks to become an important source for authorities, analysts, the media, students and the general public, because it provides a complete and effective solution to information access and data use through friendly and easy-to-understand designs. The platform analyzes and hosts information published by official sources such as the World Bank’s Global Findex, the Superintendency of Banks, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) and the Latin American Federation of Banks (Felaban).

The launch was also attended by Catalina Pazos, president of the Financial Policy and Regulation Board. The official, who celebrated the presentation of the data, said that the objective of the Board is to improve the financial inclusion index. For this reason, she indicated that work is underway to create a National Financial Inclusion Strategy (ENIF) that will seek, among other issues, to build a single information platform and generate policies that allow better access to credit for the entire population.

The official also referred to the problems generated by the setting of interest rate ceilings and service fees, and said that the issue will also be studied and a series of discussions will be held in order to take the best measures that remedy the situation. She commented that in the action plan -which is for the medium and long term-, of the 44 planned activities that have been agreed to work, five have to do with rate and tariff ceilings.

Diana Mejía, representative of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), stressed that the availability of data is very important to determine government policies on financial matters. On the subject of inclusion, she indicated that it is important to measure the issue of access to services, the use made of them, the quality of those services that lead to customer satisfaction. All this as part of a general umbrella that is financial well-being.

In the Inclusion Map you can find a series of interesting data:

• 40.4% of women (clients in the formal financial sector) made or received a digital payment in 2021, which represents an increase of 24 percentage points compared to 2014 (16.8%).
• In the 24 provinces of the country, $29,593 million in new loans were delivered in 2022. Among the provinces with the highest annual growth are Pastaza (56%), Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas (25%) and Cañar (15%).
• As of November 2022, there are 47,604 bank service points in the country distributed among the 221 cantons. Agents represent 80.7% of the total points, bringing formal services closer to the entire country.
• The number of banking transactions carried out in Ecuador increased, leveraged by the growth in the use of banking channels. The provinces with the highest annual growth are Guayas (100%), Galapagos (94.9%) and Santa Elena (56.2%). (YO)