Over 3/4ths of adults remain unbanked or underbanked

According to the World Bank’s Financial Inclusion Project, 27% of the world’s adults remain unbanked; while a further 50% remain underbanked, defined as an adult without a credit card. 44% of the world’s adults are still using cash to make at least one of their utility payments each month, and the largest group of unbanked adults reside in Asia Pacific - due sheerly to large population sizes in rural Asia, despite the largest portion of unbanked people reside in Africa. While there are 493 million unbanked adults in the Middle East and Africa, there are nearly twice that many - or 820 million unbanked adults in APAC. APAC also houses the most underbanked adults with 1.8 billion people living and operating without a credit card.