plate 223 · 2024 data

Phone savers now outnumber bank savers in 32 countries

Economies where more adults saved on a mobile money account than at a bank, 2024. 77 economies surveyed.

Trade and money rewired
  1. 1. Mexico, not China, now sells America the most goods
  2. 2. China's ASEAN trade is now almost double its US trade
  3. 3. Central banks now hold more gold than Treasuries or euros
  4. 4. China now pays the world mostly in yuan
  5. 5. Migrants now send home four times all foreign aid
  6. 6. Tether now holds more US Treasuries than the UAE
  7. 7. Developing countries' interest bill has nearly tripled since 2010
  8. 8. America's duty-free parcels grew almost tenfold in nine years
  9. 9. Poles edge past the Japanese in income per person
  10. 10. In dollars, Nigeria's economy has more than halved since 2014
  11. 11. Argentina's monthly inflation fell from 25.5% to 1.9%
  12. 12. Guyana now produces more per person than America
  13. 13. Mexico's factories now outproduce Britain's and France's
  14. 14. Ukraine received four times the aid of any other country
  15. 15. The UAE sold more goods abroad than France in 2025
  16. 16. Singapore now draws twice as much foreign investment as China
  17. 17. The EU now buys more US gas than Russian gas
  18. 18. Malaysia again sells more to America than to China
  19. 19. 22 governments now owe more than a year's national output
  20. 20. Brazil mines 93% of the world's niobium
  21. 21. More Vietnamese now work in industry than on farms
  22. 22. Money sent home to Guatemala nearly quadrupled in ten years
  23. 23. In purchasing power, Russia's economy is now bigger than Japan's
  24. 24. Indonesia set to use more palm oil than it exports
  25. 25. Factories now make more of Cambodia's economy than China's
  26. 26. China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany
  27. 27. Kazakhstan now sells Russia more than Germany does
  28. 28. China fell to third among America's suppliers in 2025
  29. 29. Colombians abroad now send home more than foreigners invest
  30. 30. 72 countries now pay China more than it lends them
  31. 31. Pakistan rose to first place in Chinese energy finance
  32. 32. America overtook China as Taiwan's biggest export market
  33. 33. Mongolia's coal exports hit a record 90 million tonnes
  34. 34. Viet Nam's ports now handle more containers than Japan's
  35. 35. Money sent home now tops half of Tajikistan's economy
  36. 36. Liberia overtook Panama as the biggest flag by ship capacity
  37. 37. Pakistan passed India in tech's share of services exports
  38. 38. Mongolia leapt from 2% to 58% paying utilities by phone
  39. 39. Smaller currencies' share of world reserves has more than doubled
  40. 40. Nickel made Indonesia the world's fifth-biggest iron and steel exporter
  41. 41. Phone savers now outnumber bank savers in 32 countries
  42. 42. Uzbekistan now receives more than twice Ukraine's remittances
32 of 77

Surveyed economies where more adults saved by phone than at a bank in 2024, up from 22 in the 2021 round.

7

Of the 32 are now outside sub-Saharan Africa, from Argentina and Peru to the Philippines and Egypt. In 2021 every one was sub-Saharan.

20.9% vs 10.3%

Filipinos saving by phone vs at a bank in 2024, the reverse of 8.5% vs 19.2% in 2021. For Filipinos, the phone has overtaken the bank for saving.

Source: World Bank, Global Findex Database 2025, 2024
the numbers & method
Phone savers now outnumber bank savers in 32 countries. Source: World Bank, Global Findex Database 2025, 2024.
CountryValue (%)
GHA61.4
SEN54.7
KEN50.5
UGA48.8
ZMB46.5
BWA36.5
GAB34.0
CIV32.4
ARG32.1
BRA31.2
LSO29.9
MYS28.5
BFA28.4
MWI28.4
CMR27.4
LBR26.8
MLI26.5
COG26.2
PER25.1
PAN24.8
COD24.0
THA23.5
SWZ22.6
TZA22.6
COL21.8
TGO21.2
PHL20.9
SAU20.4
SLE19.9
GIN19.7
BEN19.4
NGA18.9
NAM17.5
KAZ16.2
MOZ15.7
MNG15.1
ZWE12.6
BOL12.6
PRY12.6
IDN12.2
GMB11.4
ZAF11.1
IND10.9
DOM10.5
VNM10.1
PAK9.4
COM8.7
EGY8.5
VEN8.5
TUR8.1
MDG7.9
JOR7.6
HND7.5
TCD7.2
IRQ7.2
KGZ5.8
NIC5.4
TJK5.3
KHM4.5
BLZ4.4
MUS4.4
SLV4.2
ETH3.8
ARM3.7
MEX3.5
LAO3.1
ECU3.0
NPL3.0
PSE2.6
NER2.3
GTM2.0
IRN1.8
BGD1.6
TUN1.3
MAR1.2
LKA0.6
LBN0.1

Claim types Fact · Estimate · Interpretation

World Bank, Global Findex Database 2025 (source 28 in the World Bank data API, last updated 2025-10-06), read from the World Bank API (api.worldbank.org/v2/country/all/indicator/fin17a;fin17b?source=28). fin17b: 'Saved money using a mobile money account (% age 15+)'; fin17a: 'Saved at a bank or similar financial institution (% age 15+)'. Survey estimates of adults 15+. The mobile money saving question is only asked in economies where mobile money is common, so the map covers the 77 economies with both values in 2024; the rest are shown as not surveyed. Most high-income economies were not asked. A country is yellow when the phone share is higher than the bank share (unrounded). Map values: share of adults who saved on a mobile money account, 2024. Earlier round: 22 of 80 economies surveyed in 2021 or 2022 (Findex 2021 round; Botswana, DR Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho and Madagascar were surveyed in 2022) had more phone savers than bank savers, all in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2024: 32 of 77, of which 25 in sub-Saharan Africa and 7 outside: Argentina 32.1 vs 23.1, Peru 25.1 vs 21.6, Colombia 21.8 vs 14.2, Philippines 20.9 vs 10.3, Pakistan 9.4 vs 7.0, Egypt 8.5 vs 7.9, Jordan 7.6 vs 6.8. Togo (21.2 vs 19.9), Mali (26.5 vs 8.7) and Mozambique (15.7 vs 8.3) also flipped. No country surveyed in both rounds went back from phone-first to bank-first. Philippines 2021: 8.5% phone, 19.2% bank. Ghana 61.4 vs 25.9; Kenya 50.5 vs 20.1; Senegal 54.7 vs 24.1. Narrow margins: Egypt, Jordan, Togo, Peru. Iraq is level (7.2 vs 7.2, bank slightly higher). Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding high income) as a whole: 12.0% phone vs 14.8% bank in 2021, 22.8% vs 19.7% in 2024. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

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