Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries [Dataset]

First, we present new indicators of banking sector outreach across 99 countries, constructed from aggregate data provided by bank regulators. Second, we show that our indicators closely predict harder-to-collect micro-level statistics of household and firm use of banking services, and are associated with measures of firm financing obstacles in the expected way.

Finally, we explore the association between our outreach indicators and standard determinants of financial sector depth. We find many similarities but also some differences in the determinants of outreach and depth.