Skip to main content

What is Financial Inclusion (FI) Index?

Achieving complete financial inclusion is one of the important goals of the nations and central banks across the world. But how do we measure the extent to which the population of the country is financially included? Well, there is an index in India for this.

What is Financial Inclusion (FI) Index?

The composite Financial Inclusion (FI) Index was constructed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in August 2021, to capture the extent of financial inclusion across the country.

FI-Index has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with Government and respective sectoral regulators. 

What are the parameters of FI-index?

The FI-index comprises of three broad parameters (comprising of 97 indicators) with different weights assigned to each parameter.

  1. Ease of Access (35%)
  2. Availability and usage of services (45%)
  3. Quality of services (20%)

The 'Quality' parameters captures the quality aspect of financial inclusion as reflected by financial literacy, consumer protection, and inequalities and deficiencies in services.

What is the base year of FI-index?

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.

What does FI-index value mean?

The FI-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.

How often is FI-index released?

The FI-index (as on March) is published by RBI annually in the months of July.

What is FI-index value in India?

(Updated on July 22, 2025)

The value of FI-Index for March 2025 stands at 67.0 vis-à-vis 64.2 in March 2024, with growth witnessed across all sub-indices, viz., Access, Usage and Quality. Improvement in FI-Index in FY 2025 is contributed by Usage and Quality dimensions, reflecting deepening of financial inclusion, and sustained financial literacy initiatives.


References

Reserve Bank of India. (2021, August 17). 'Reserve Bank of India introduces the Financial Inclusion Index'. Retrieved from https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=52068

Reserve Bank of India. (2025, July 22). 'Financial Inclusion Index for March 2025'. Retrieved from https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=60875


Follow at - Telegram   Instagram   LinkedIn   Twitter

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

FEMA - Borrowing and Lending [including External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) and Trade Credit (TC)]

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has amended the regulations for borrowing and lending under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA). What are the regulations for External Commercial Borrowing (ECB)? External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) means borrowing by an eligible borrower from a recognised lender. Eligible borrowers – Any person resident in India (other than an individual) that is incorporated, established or registered under a Central or State Act is an eligible borrower, provided such person is permitted for ECB in terms of applicable Acts. An eligible borrower that is under a restructuring scheme or corporate insolvency resolution process may raise ECB only if specifically permitted under the restructuring or resolution plan. An eligible borrower against whom any investigation, adjudication or appeal by a law enforcement agency for contravention of any rule, regulation or direction issued under FEMA is pending, may raise ECB notwithstanding the pending investigation or adjudi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guidelines to facilitate faster cross-border inward payments

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued guidelines to facilitate faster cross-border inward payments. What is the rationale behind the guidelines? The RBI’s Payments Vision 2025 aims to bring efficiency in the cross-border payments aligning with the G20 roadmap for cross-border payments that has set targets for achieving cheaper, faster, more transparent, and more accessible cross-border payments. One of the challenges with speed of cross-border payments is experienced at the beneficiary leg i.e., the time taken from receipt of the payment at the beneficiary bank till credit to the beneficiary account. What are the guidelines to facilitate faster cross-border inward payments? Banks shall inform their customer of the receipt of cross-border inward transactions immediately on receipt of inward message. Messages received after close of operating hours of banks shall be informed to customer immediately at the start of the next business day. Banks shall undertake reconciliation and confirmat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guidelines on Money Changing Activities (Updated as on April 02, 2026)

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has updated the guidelines on money changing activities. Who is Authorised Person? Authorised Person means an authorised dealer, money changer, off-shore banking unit or any other person authorised under section 10(1) of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) to deal in foreign exchange or foreign securities. What are the categories of Authorised Persons? Authorised Dealer (AD) Category-I – entities which are authorised by RBI to carry out all permissible current and capital account transactions. Authorised Dealer (AD) Category-II – entities which are authorised by RBI to carry out specified non-trade related current account transactions, all the activities permitted to Full Fledged Money Changers (FFMC) and any other activity as decided by RBI, and include (i) Upgraded FFMCs; (ii) Select Regional Rural Banks (RRBs); (iii) Select Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs); and (iv) Other entities. Authorised Dealer (AD) Category-III – entities which are authorised...
Post a Comment
Read more

Continuous Clearing and Settlement on Realisation in Cheque Truncation System (CTS) (Updated as on December 24, 2025)

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued direction on continuous clearing and settlement on realisation in Cheque Truncation System (CTS). What is Cheque Truncation System (CTS)? Cheque Truncation System (CTS) involves halting the physical movement of the cheque and its replacement by images of the instrument and the corresponding data contained in the MICR line.  In CTS, 3 images are taken of each cheque – front Gray Scale, front Black & White and back Black & White. MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) is a 9-digit code printed at the bottom of cheques using magnetic ink – first 3 digits indicate City Code, middle 3 digits indicate Bank Code and the last 3 digits indicate Bank Branch Code. Only CTS-2010 standards compliant instruments can be presented for clearing through CTS. The presenting banks which truncates the cheques need to preserve the physical instruments for 10 years. From when will the continuous clearing and settlement on realisation in CTS be implemented...
Post a Comment
Read more

Directions on Trade Relief Measures (Updated as on March 31, 2026)

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued directions on trade relief measures in respect to credit facilities extended by regulated entities. To whom shall the directions be applicable? The directions shall be applicable to the following Regulated Entities (REs) – Commercial Banks Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks, State Co-operative Banks and Central Co-operative Banks Non-Banking Financial Companies (including Housing Finance Companies) All-India Financial Institutions Credit Information Companies What are the eligibility criteria for the trade relief? RE shall satisfy itself that the borrower’s business is impacted by trade disruptions caused by global headwinds. For the purpose of considering relief, a borrower shall be deemed to be eligible upon fulfilment of all of the following conditions – The borrower is engaged in exports relating to any of the sectors specified in the directions. The borrower had an outstanding export credit facility from a RE as of August 31, 2025. The accoun...
Post a Comment
Read more