India tops chart in financial inclusion progress: BCG

NEW DELHI: India has topped the chart denoting the progress made by countries on the financial inclusion front as around 20 crore people have "gained access" to financial services, according to a report by global consultancy firm BCG.

However, the report said India and several other countries are not effectively converting their economic growth into well-being improvements for their citizens.

"India also produced strong ...improvements but converted its strong growth into well-being at a rate slightly below average," the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) today said in its report titled 'The Private-Sector Opportunity to Improve Well-Being: The 2016 Sustainable Economic Development Assessment'.

The report noted that India also leads the pack in progress on financial inclusion as nearly 200 million people have gained access to financial services.

The report uses the example of financial inclusion to highlight the critical role private-sector innovation can play in improving living standards.

It measures the relative well-being of 163 countries through ten key areas, including economic stability, health, governance and environment.

The report said the United State's performance in converting both wealth and growth into well-being is below par globally, while Germany's performance is above par on both counts.

Among the countries in Western Europe, those with high current levels of well-being (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway) are making greater progress than those with low current-level scores (Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain), particularly in employment and education.

"These countries, concentrated in southwest Europe, are performing particularly poorly in employment and are falling further behind the rest of the world in that area," the report said.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm and a leading advisor on business strategy.