Kenya Tops in Brookings Financial Scorecard

Kenya garnered 86 percent of the total possible points in four dimensions to receive the top score on Brookings financial to emerge the first overall among 26 countries in an inclusion scorecard.

As a per a post on the company’s website, the 2017 Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) report evaluates access to and usage of affordable financial services by under-served people across 26 geographically, politically, and economically diverse countries.

The 2017 report assesses these countries’ financial inclusion ecosystems based on four dimensions of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of selected traditional and digital financial services.

“Countries have increasingly recognized that advancing access to and usage of affordable, secure formal financial services can contribute to their development objectives,” wrote FDIP authors Robin Lewis, John Villasenor and Darrell West.

As part of its aim to provide policymakers and others with information that can help improve financial inclusion efforts, the FDIP team produces an annual report and scorecard that measure countries on four “dimensions” of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and the adoption of traditional and digital financial services.

This is the third year in a row that Kenya has received the top score on the FDIP scorecard. Kenya’s overall score increased by two percentage points this year since 2016 when it received 84 percent of the total possible points.

Kenya received its highest score (94%) in the regulatory environment category. In addition, it received the highest score among all countries on the adoption dimension of the scorecard, primarily due to its considerable rates of mobile money adoption among low-income adults and women.