Financial Inclusion : An Overview of Its Various Dimensions and the Initiatives to Enhance Its Current Level

The present working paper provides an introduction to the topic of financial inclusion (and exclusion) in five Sections:(i) The main concepts and characteristics as well as some statistical data are set out in Section 1.(ii) Section 2, on the policy aspects related to financial inclusion, deals with the interaction of financial inclusion with monetary policy, financial stability and anti-money laundering/terrorist financing preventive measures.(iii) In Section 3 the correlation between financial literacy and financial inclusion is analysed.(iv) The case for coordinated efforts to enhance financial inclusion at international, EU and national level is presented in Section 4.(v) Finally, Section 5 presents briefly the link between technology and financial inclusion