Which Households Use Banks? Evidence from the Transition Economies

Thorsten Beck and Martin Brown

No 2011-01, Working Papers from Swiss National Bank

Abstract: This paper uses survey data for 29,000 households from 29 transition economies to explore how the use of banking services is related to household characteristics, bank ownership structure and the development of the financial infrastructure. At the household level we find that the holding of a bank account or bank card increases with income, wealth and education in most countries and also find evidence for an urban-rural gap, as well as for a role of religion and social integration. Our results show that foreign bank ownership is associated with more bank accounts among high-wealth, high-income, and educated households. State ownership, on the other hand, does not induce financial inclusion of rural and poorer households. We find that higher deposit insurance coverage, better payment systems and creditor protection encourage the holding of bank accounts in particular by highincome and high-wealth households. All in all, our findings shed doubt on the ability of policy levers to broaden the financial system to disadvantaged groups.

Keywords: Access to finance; Bank-ownership; Deposit insurance; Payment system; Creditor protection. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G18 G2 O16 P34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cis, nep-mfd and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

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Working Paper: Which Households Use Banks? Evidence from the Transition Economies (2011)
Working Paper: Which households use banks? Evidence from the transition economies (2011)
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