Financial Exclusion

This text is concerned with the increasingly important and problematic area of financial exclusion, broadly defined as the inability and/or reluctance of particular societal groups to access mainstream financial services. There is growing evidence that deregulation in developed financial sectors improves financial inclusion for some societal groups, but may at the same time exacerbate it for others. In developing countries access to financial services is typically limited and therefore providing wider access to such services can aid financial and economic development.

Carbó Santiago is Professor of Economics at the University of Granada, Spain. He is also the Head of Research on Financial Systems at the Savings Banks Foundations (Funcas) in Spain. Edward P.M. Gardner is Professor of Banking and Finance, Director of the School for Business and Regional Development and Co-Director of the Institute of European Finance at the University of Wales, Bangor and the Bank of Valleta Chair in International Banking and Finance at the University of Malta. Philip Molyneux is Professor in Banking and Finance at the University of Wales, Bangor, UK, and at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.