According to Ipsos, four out of 10 people have access to Peru’s financial system.

Peru It was on the penultimate position in the list of eight countries where the index financial accessibility its inhabitants. A study by Ipsos places our countries behind Panama, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, but before Bolivia.

According to the study, Peru reached 39.8%, which means an increase of 2 points compared to the same study in 2021, where the figure reached 37.9%.

How many people have access to the financial system in the country?

According to the survey, despite the low level of access, knowledge about financial products has increased. Thus, it stands out that Peruvians on average know seven of these services, with 37% going up to 10. The most commonly used tools are Credit cardssavings accounts and mobile wallets, the latter using 49% daily or several times a week.

On the other hand, only 36% of Peruvians have at least one financial product. In addition, 7 out of 10 Peruvians do not have a loan product from an official institution.

Why do they not have access to the financial system?

For 65% of Peruvians there are barriers to accessing the financial system, one of them is lack of income, another factor is lack of interest in the system, and the third factor is the feeling that they do not need it.

However, a coincidence was also found between financial inclusion and Internet access, since those who have this service have twice as many points in the rating as those who do not have it, the indicator at the regional level is 48.5 versus 24 points , and in Peru – 44.7 against 25.4. A similar figure is repeated in every country.

Measuring Usage

According to the IIF, during the month, 74% of Peruvians do not use financial products (such as debit or credit cards) for basic transactions. This percentage is higher only in Bolivia with 83%. In general, cash is still the preferred payment method for Peruvians when shopping for items such as food or household goods (over 90% of people indicated they use cash for these activities). However, the IIF is showing a lot of growth in terms of usage and knowledge of mobile wallets, which are now the second largest payment method in a large number of categories, ahead of credit and debit cards. Peru is the only place where this situation occurs.

On the other hand, in Peru, an important 73% indicated that they did not save anything in the past year. And of the 27% who did, 11% keep the money somewhere in your home. The main reason (which triples the second place) identified by the study is that there is not enough income to save. This is followed by responses in which respondents say they are not interested in savings or need it.

At the regional level, the usage dimension has an average score of 29.2. The ranking is led by Chile with 46.8, followed by Panama (41.7), Argentina (38.3), Ecuador (30.8), Colombia (25.2), Mexico (26.5), Peru (22. 0) and Bolivia (19.9).