Financial Inclusion: Policies, Status, and Challenges in Palestine

Abstract

Palestine suffers from unemployment and slow economic growth as a result of instability in political situation. To achieve the stability in the economic growth, the government is working through the policies and procedures to deliver the financial services to the poor and disadvantaged people in affordable cost which is called the financial inclusion. This paper was highlighted on the reality of the financial inclusion in Palestine through discussing the policies and instructions which are adopted by the financial authorities and financial services companies. The study used secondary data which was collected from differed sources to analyze and discuss the financial inclusion indicators and compare it with some countries in the area. In this paper a “stock market “was added as a new factor to the financial inclusion indicators (Access, usage, and quality) which was determined by Group 20. As the literature studies concluded that the relationship between the stock market and economic growth very strong. The study found that financial inclusion indicators was improved since Palestine has joined to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion in addition to the improvement in the infrastructure. But using the financial services are still limited specially the credit, and need more efforts to improve it. Also some countries in the area has good financial inclusion indicators as a result of political stability