Borrowers from commercial banks (per 1,000 adults) - Country Ranking - Africa

Definition: Borrowers from commercial banks are the reported number of resident customers that are nonfinancial corporations (public and private) and households who obtained loans from commercial banks and other banks functioning as commercial banks. For many countries data cover the total number of loan accounts due to lack of information on loan account holders.

Source: International Monetary Fund, Financial Access Survey.

See also: Thematic map, Time series comparison

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Development Relevance: Access to finance can expand opportunities for all with higher levels of access and use of banking services associated with lower financing obstacles for people and businesses. A stable financial system that promotes efficient savings and investment is also crucial for a thriving democracy and market economy. There are several aspects of access to financial services: availability, cost, and quality of services. The development and growth of credit markets depend on access to timely, reliable, and accurate data on borrowers' credit experiences. Access to credit can be improved by making it easy to create and enforce collateral agreements and by increasing information about potential borrowers' creditworthiness. Lenders look at a borrower's credit history and collateral. Where credit registries and effective collateral laws are absent - as in many developing countries - banks make fewer loans. Indicators that cover getting credit include the strength of legal rights index and the depth of credit information index.

Limitations and Exceptions: For several countries, data cover all borrowers including commercial banks, credit unions and financial cooperatives, deposit taking microfinance institutions, and other deposit takers. These include all resident financial corporations and quasi-corporations (except the central bank) that are mainly engaged in financial intermediation and that issue liabilities included in the national definition of broad money. These institutions have varying names in different countries, such as savings and loan associations, building societies, rural banks and agricultural banks, post office giro institutions, post office savings banks, savings banks, and money market funds.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Borrowers from commercial banks denotes the total number of resident customers that are nonfinancial corporations (public and private) and households who obtained loans from commercial banks for every 1,000 adults in the reporting country. It is calculated as (number of borrowers)*1,000/adult population in the reporting country.

Aggregation method: Median

Periodicity: Annual

General Comments: Country-specific metadata can be found on the IMF’s FAS website at  http://fas.imf.org.