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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 09, 2024)

The value of the FI-index for March 2024 stands at 64.2 vis-à-vis 60.1 in March 2023, with growth witnessed across all sub-indices. Improvement in FI-Index is mainly contributed by Usage dimension, reflecting deepening of financial inclusion.


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. (2024, July 09). 'Financial Inclusion Index for March 2024'. Retrieved from https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=58259


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