(Expansion) – In recent years various efforts have been made to develop a more stable, solid and inclusive financial system. These actions have positioned Mexico as a country that seeks to promote greater access to the formal financial system.
A few days ago the results of the ENAFIN 2021 were presented; It is not given much publicity, but it is important to understand the data to know how the financial inclusion of companies is doing, not just of people.
While the ENIF is representative for people between the ages of 18 and 70 in Mexico -which are 83.6 million-, the ENAFIN is only representative of 280.4 thousand companies that have six or more workers located in towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants.
The ENAFIN is not representative of all companies or all commercial establishments in Mexico, it has a bias towards large populations and larger companies, so its results overestimate the reality of business financial inclusion.
An interesting fact from the ENAFIN 2021 for small, medium and large companies is the percentage that has at least one banking product, 98%. The micro-enterprises that have a product is 76%.
The financial product that has the greatest inclusion in companies is deposits, with 84%. It is important to interpret these data and the high inclusion in deposits is due to the fact that companies need this financial product for the proper operation of their business to receive and make transfers.
In the ENAFIN we can see the data that shows that companies prefer to receive card payments with 45% and with QR only 6%. In the commerce sector, 64% of companies receive card payments. It is undoubtedly an area of opportunity for banks because there is still a third of commercial companies that do not receive card payments.
The product with the lowest financial inclusion is credit, with only 25%; if compared with the data from 2014, there was 31%. In addition, 33% of the companies saw their operations affected by lack of credit.
If we take into account that ENAFIN does not represent all companies in Mexico, the reality of low financial inclusion in credit to companies is much more serious. In addition, it is important to analyze that the informal sector does not have access to sources of financing.
The low financial inclusion in credit is hard data for various economic and political sectors to argue that the financial sector, particularly the banks, are not adequately fulfilling their function.
The low level of financial inclusion in the credit product, without a doubt, must be a major challenge for the banking sector in Mexico, grouped in the Association of Banks of Mexico (ABM), chaired by Daniel Becker, because credit must be a important levers for the business sector to grow.
For this reason, it is necessary to analyze what has gone wrong so that the banks can fulfill their social responsibility.
Editor’s note: Jorge Sánchez Tello is Director of Applied Research at the Fundación de Estudios Financieros-FUNDEF AC Independent “Think Tank” based at ITAM, on the Financial System. Follow him on and on The opinions of this article are the sole responsibility of the author.
