Gender and financial inclusion in Colombia

The access to the formal financial system allows people to be organized financially, save money and plan for the future. However, there is still a high percentage of the Colombian population that is outside the financial system, especially women. The objective of this paper is to measure, through an econometric model based on the data of the World Bank′s 2014 Global Findex Database, the difference in gender regarding the financial inclusion in Colombia during 2014. In order to do so, three categories are taken into account and they measure (i) the access to services from a formal financial institution, (ii) their active use, and (iii) the active use of informal financial services. The latter is relevant because it takes into account that segment of the population that is marginalized from the formal services of the financial sector. Overall, it is shown that being a woman has a negative impact regarding inclusion on the formal financial system, understanding this inclusion as the access, and effective use of formal financial services