Financial Inclusion-Index rises to 64.2 in March 2024

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Last Updated11/07/2024

The Financial Inclusion Index (FI-Index), which captures the extent of financial inclusion across the country, stood at 64.2 in 2024 from 60.1 in 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

The improvement in the index was due to growth witnessed across all sub-indices, the RBI said.
The 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.
The FI-Index comprises three broad parameters
- Access (having a weight of 35 per cent in the index),
- Usage (weight 45 per cent), and
- Quality (weight 20 per cent)
- Each of these consists of various dimensions, which are computed based on a number of indicators.
The Index is responsive to ease of access, availability and usage of services, and quality of services, comprising all 97 indicators.
Improvement in FI-Index is mainly contributed by usage dimension, reflecting deepening of financial inclusion, the RBI said.
The index has been conceptualized 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.
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.
The annual FI-Index for the period ending March 2021 was 53.9 as against 43.4 for the period ending March 2017.
The FI-Index is published annually in July every year.