ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the status of financial inclusion of Benazir Income Support Programs’ Beneficiaries, barriers to formal financial products, and evaluates their financial behavior necessary for inclusion into the formal financial institutions; saving behavior, loan taking behavior, and financial and digital literacy. It also explores the impact of socio-economic characteristics, financial literacy, and borrowing behavior on the saving behavior (a universal indicator of financial inclusion) of beneficiaries.

Multistage sampling was used to collect the data. A sample size of 210 respondents were taken from six districts in three provinces; Punjab, KPK and Sindh. Beneficiaries were taken for analysis from the districts of Bahawalpur, Narowal, Muzaffargarh, Haripur, Sukkur and Jacobobad. Survey Data is analyzed using Descriptive statistics, Exploratory Data Analysis and Binary logistic regression.

The findings show that the saving attitude is present among the beneficiaries. Lack of income & knowledge are the major barriers to formal savings. As far as the loan taking behavior of beneficiaries is concerned the findings exhibit a very strong borrowing behavior. Beneficiaries revert to informal borrowing as they face several problems in attaining loans from banks/MFIs; Women face the major problem of distance in getting loan from banks/MFIs in all Provinces & rural/urban. Lack of knowledge & lack of cooperation were other major constraints. However, in urban area, there is a loan taking behavior from banks/financial institutions. Concerning financial & digital literacy, the evidence show that a considerable majority of the beneficiaries are illiterate and they find it hard to manage digital financial activities via mobile phone except for receiving money.