Financial Inclusion Index (FI-Index)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported an improvement in the Financial Inclusion Index, which increased to 67 in March 2025, up from 64.2 in March 2024.
Components of FI-Index
- The FI-Index is composed of three sub-indices:
- Access
- Usage
- Quality
- All three sub-indices saw growth in FY25.
- Weights for parameters:
- Access: 35%
- Usage: 45%
- Quality: 20%
Significance of Improvement
- The rise reflects a deepening of financial inclusion and successful financial literacy initiatives.
- The index captures financial inclusion as a single value from 0 to 100, where 0 indicates full exclusion and 100 indicates full inclusion.
Conceptualization of FI-Index
- The index includes banking, investments, insurance, postal, and pension sectors.
- The quality parameter focuses on consumer protection, financial literacy, and service inequalities.
- No base year is used, allowing it to reflect cumulative stakeholder efforts.