The Effect of Institutional Quality on Financial Inclusion in ASEAN Countries

This study investigates the empirical linkages between ASEAN countries’ institutional quality and financial inclusion using country data from 2008–2019. In this paper, six governance indicators from the World Governance index are used to measure the impact of institutions on financial inclusion. The PCA method’s financial inclusion index is constructed from 3 indicators: penetration, access, and usage: penetration, access, and usage with six indices respectively as the number of ATMs per 1000 km2 , the number of bank branches per 1000 km2 , the number of ATMs per 100,000 people and the number of bank branches for 100,000 adults, the ratio of credit to private to GDP, and the ratio of deposit to private to GDP. Regression analysis with the Generalized Moments method shows the positive impact of institutions and other control variables like GDP per capita, inflation, bank concentration, and human development index on financial inclusion. Therefore, this study recommends that the government and policymakers in countries pursue the financial inclusion agenda to pay attention to the financial and economic indicators and institutional factors. This is because many savers, borrowers, and investors may not be protected when financial contracts are enforced or breaches occur in an environment where economic, legal, judicial, and political institutions are weak, such as in ASEAN countries. KCI Citation Count: 0