Dragão Porto Comments On One Fifth Of Portuguese Still Keeping Their Money Under The Mattress

May 1, 2012 - PRLog -- Dragão Porto were surprised to hear recently that only 81 percent of the Portuguese population has a bank account, and while that means that the large majority of the nation’s over-15s has a safe place for their savings, nearly one fifth, or 19 percent of the population, still keeps their cash elsewhere. Last week the World Bank published the findings in a report about access to financial institutions around the world. It concluded that just 25 percent of the world’s population has a formal relationship with banks. Portugal’s results fell below the Euro-zone’s average, given that the overall rate of financial inclusion for the 17 member countries is 91 percent.

“It’s definitely a surprising figure,” said a source from Dragão Porto, a Portuguese sales and marketing company, “You wouldn’t imagine that so many people didn’t have a safe place for their money. Having a bank account encourages saving and developing more wealth. It can be easier to just live day by day when relying on cash.”

The World Bank warned that a lack of access to financial services affects growth and the eradication of poverty as it causes people on low incomes to have greater difficulties in accumulating savings and protecting themselves against risks. The access to appropriate financial services could mean improvements to daily management of personal finances, while at the same time it contributes to reducing informal and illegal instruments of financial access, which often entail abusive interest.

Our source at Dragão Porto said, “This figure really highlights that more needs to be done to improve access to these services for those on lower incomes, and to make sure that everyone in Portugal has the opportunity to protect their money.”

The study highlights a lack of access to financial services, which it says is directly related to the inequality of incomes. Figures show that in developed countries only ten percent of wealthy citizens do not have a bank account. In developing countries, such a reality affects more than half of the population. The fact that financial exclusion still affects some three quarters of the world’s population, as well as being a matter of poverty is also associated to the costs of opening a bank account as well as travelling to a bank to do so, in the case of people living in rural areas, the report said.