Chinanews.com, Beijing, December 21 (Li Jingze) The Rural Development Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the "Research Report on China County Digital Financial Inclusion Development Index (2020)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") in Beijing on the 21st.
The report pointed out that in recent years, the overall development level of digital financial inclusion in counties in China has been rapidly increasing.
Through index analysis, the report concludes that China's county-level digital financial inclusion development level has generally been rapidly improved from 2017 to 2019.
In 2018 and 2019, the average score (median) of the Digital Financial Inclusion Index increased by 35.92% and 34.99% year-on-year, respectively, maintaining rapid growth.
The report believes that at present, as measured by the average score (median) of the county digital financial inclusive development index, the development level of digital financial inclusive financial development in different regions varies, with the highest level of county development in the eastern region and the second in the central region. The level of development in the western and northeastern regions is relatively lagging.
However, from the perspective of development trends, the development level of digital financial inclusion in the central region is showing a trend of catching up quickly, and the gap between it and the economically developed regions in the east has narrowed significantly, but the gap between the western and northeastern regions and the eastern region is slowly expanding.
Although the gap between the county-level digital financial inclusion in the western region and the eastern and central regions is widening, its development momentum is better, and the overall development speed is faster than that in the northeast.
According to the report, in the past three years, among the five types of digital inclusive financial services in counties, namely payment, credit, credit, wealth management, and insurance, digital loans and digital credits have been used as basic types of financial services to serve small and micro businesses in counties and the three rural groups. The development is relatively fast and the growth is the most significant.
The report believes that, on the whole, there is still huge room for the development of digital financial inclusion in counties.
First of all, digital infrastructure such as the Internet is the foundation for the development of digital financial inclusion.
As of March 2020, the Internet penetration rate in rural China is only 46.2%, and there is still much room for improvement.
Secondly, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the index scores of county digital inclusive financial services in terms of breadth, depth of service, and service quality.
In response to the problems in the development of digital inclusive finance in counties in China, the report puts forward the following recommendations: improve digital inclusive finance infrastructure, narrow the “digital divide” between urban and rural areas; strengthen the top-level design of digital inclusive finance development, and improve the legal and policy support framework Establish and improve the county-level digital inclusive financial system; further improve the digital inclusive financial literacy of the county population.
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