The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday announced the formation of a composite Financial Inclusion Index (FI-Index) to capture the extent of financial inclusion across the country.
The annual FI-Index for the period ended March 2021 stood at 53.9 compared with 43.4 for the period ended March 2017. The FI-Index will be published in July every year, the RBI said in a release.
The index has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with the government and respective sectoral regulators, the RBI said.
The index captures information on various aspects of financial inclusion in a single value ranging between 0 and 100, where 0 represents complete financial exclusion and 100 indicates full financial inclusion.
“The FI-Index comprises three broad parameters (weights indicated in brackets) viz., Access (35%), Usage (45%), and Quality (20%) with each of these consisting of various dimensions, which are computed based on a number of indicators,” the RBI said.
The index is responsive to ease of access, availability and usage of services, and quality of services for all 97 indicators.
The FI-Index has been constructed without any ‘base year’ and as such it reflects cumulative efforts of all stakeholders over the years towards financial inclusion, it said.
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