People With No Bank Account in Asia

What percentage of each country’s population doesn’t have a bank account?

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We recently looked at the percentage of people in Europe without a bank account. That map showed a very interesting and clear east-west divide. In Asia, we see the exact opposite. There is more or less no geographical pattern.

The highest percentages of people without a bank account can be found in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and parts of the Middle East. The highest percentage can be found in Afghanistan, where a bit more than 85% of the population does not have a bank account.

The lowest percentages can be found in the most developed countries in Asia like Japan (1.8%), Singapore (2.2%), Hong Kong (4.7%), South Korea (5.2%), Taiwan (5.8%) and Israel (7.2%). However, that pattern is not completely true. Iran and Mongolia, which aren’t highly developed countries, also have a very low percentage of people with no bank account. We can also see some more developed countries in the Middle East, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that have a significantly higher percentage of its population that doesn’t have a bank account.

Although there is probably some link with how well developed a country is, it appears to be not very strong.

The data for this map comes from The World Bank. They define a bank account as an account at a bank or other financial institution or with a mobile money service provider.