RBI’s financial inclusion index shows all-round growth, rises to 67 in March 2025: Here’s what it means | Business News

“Improvement in FI-Index in FY2025 is contributed by usage and quality dimensions, reflecting deepening of financial inclusion, and sustained financial literacy initiatives,” the RBI said in a release.

The index captures information on various aspects of financial inclusion in a single value ranging between 0 and 100, where 0 represents complete financial exclusion and 100 indicates full financial inclusion.

Decoding the rise in FI-index

Commenting on the surge, Spice Money’s founder and CEO, Dilip Modi, said the rise in RBI’s Financial Inclusion Index to 67 is a clear sign that the country is making meaningful strides in deepening financial empowerment, especially at the last mile.

“What stands out in this year’s progress is the role of usage, service quality, and most importantly, financial literacy in driving the improvement. It’s no longer just about access, it’s about impact,” he said.

The steady rise in the index reflects the success of ecosystem-wide efforts to bring underserved communities into the formal financial fold not just digitally, but meaningfully, said Deepak Verma, managing director and CEO, Findi, a fintech firm.

What is RBI’s FI-index?

The FI-Index has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with the government and respective sectoral regulators. The index comprises three broad parameters — access, usage, and quality, having weight 35 per cent, 45 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. The weight of each parameter consists of various dimensions, which are computed based on a number of indicators.

A unique feature of the index is the quality parameter which captures the quality aspect of financial inclusion as reflected by financial literacy, consumer protection, and inequalities and deficiencies in services.

The FI-Index has been constructed without any base year and as such it reflects cumulative efforts of all stakeholders over the years towards financial inclusion. The annual FI-Index for the period ending March 2021 was 53.9 as against 43.4 for the period ending March 2017.