Thursday’s Global Policy Forum (GPF) activities spotlighted the importance of data collection. As part of the day’s agenda, Rochelle Tomas of the Financial Inclusion Data Working Group (FIDWG) unveiled the group’s new core set of five indicators, which will capture data on access to and usage of financial services.

The five new indicators are: number of access points per 10,000 adults; percentage of administrative units with access points; percentage of population living in administrative unites with access points; percentage of adults with a regulated deposit account; and percentage of adults with a regulated form of credit.

According to working group members, this set of indicators was chosen because they are practical, relevant, and specific and will allow for the comparison of financial inclusion across countries. Working group member Pirajit Padmasuta, from the Bank of Thailand, described the new catalog of indicators as an à la carte offering of tested indicators that will allow members to deepen and personalize their data collection efforts.

At the GPF, FIDWG also reiterated its focus on quality. Relevant to this goal, Diane Bizimana from the Banque de la Republique du Burundi further discussed the effort to measure how well financial services address clients’ needs: “The right question to answer is, do the services that are provided actually meet the needs of the population, and are they accessing these safely?”

In closing, Raul Hernandez Coss of Mexico’s CNBV emphasized that national ownership of data collection ensures that evidence drives policy and outlined how FIDWG’s efforts will build on the existing data work of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.