Determinants of financial inclusion in gulf cooperation council countries

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of financial inclusion in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. For this study, we used the Global Findex Database 2017. Since the study variables are binary, we used the Probit method to estimate the results. Our findings show that the number of people who reported having a formal financial institution account increased by 16 percent between 2011 and 2017. At the same time, formal saving and formal borrowing were low in GCC countries compared to the average of high-income countries’ average. We also found that financial inclusion is higher for males, older people, more educated people, and higher-income people, while women and younger people are less likely to be financially included in GCC countries. Therefore, FI efforts in GCC should focus on the young and women population as they are most likely to be excluded from the formal financial system. Therefore, tailored products and services that meet the needs of these groups should be designed and promoted to improve FI among them so that their access to and use of financial services are enhanced.