Southern Africa
Where adult account ownership expanded in Southern Africa
Zambia’s adult account ownership estimate rose from 45.86% in 2017 to 72.70% in 2024. South Africa had the highest 2024 estimate of the six countries in this comparison, at 81.13%.
Sources checked
Each span uses the lowest and highest observations in the published series. The observations can fall in different years.
The two common survey years support direct comparison
All six countries have observations for 2017 and 2024. Zambia rose by 26.84 percentage points between those years and Mozambique by 12.72 points. Namibia’s estimate fell from 80.63% to 72.92%. Each result refers to the two surveyed populations. Source 1
South Africa and Namibia started at different levels
Namibia’s 2017 estimate was about 11.4 points higher than South Africa’s. By 2024 South Africa was about 8.2 points higher. A change in rank can reflect movement in both countries, even when the latest difference looks small. Source 1
Financial access includes more than a bank account
The combined indicator counts eligible mobile-money accounts as well as accounts at financial institutions. A person with both is included once. The two channels can be studied separately with the survey’s more specific indicators. Source 3
Account ownership and activity need separate measures
The survey asks about ownership, while a business evaluating demand for a service may need payment activity, frequency of use and whether customers can access cash or digital services reliably. Survey estimates also have sampling uncertainty. Source 3