The GCC's financial regulators publish a joint financial inclusion report, and the numbers are comparable

The GCC's financial regulators have published a joint financial inclusion report, and the report's notable feature is that the numbers are comparable across the six markets — the same definitions, the same metrics, the same reporting period. The comparability is the thing the region has lacked, and the lack has been the obstacle to understanding the region's financial inclusion progress.

Financial inclusion measurement has been a national exercise, with each market defining its terms and reporting its numbers on its own basis. The result is a set of numbers that cannot be compared: a market that reports a high inclusion rate may be using a broader definition than one that reports a low rate, and the comparison is meaningless. The joint report, by using common definitions, produces numbers that can be compared, and the comparison is the measurement the region has needed.

The reason the comparability matters is that it enables the region to learn from itself. A market that can see its inclusion rate alongside its neighbours' — on the same basis — can identify the gaps, the policies that closed them elsewhere, and the practices that are worth adopting. The learning is the benefit the comparability produces, and the learning is what the joint report enables. The report is the measurement, and the measurement is the precondition for the policy.

The implication is that the GCC is building the regional measurement infrastructure that a regional policy response requires, and the financial inclusion report is the first instance. The reports that follow — on payments, on lending, on digital adoption — will use the same comparable methodology, and the region's policy will be better informed as a result. The report is a technical exercise and a structural enabler, and it is the kind of work that, by producing the numbers, enables the policy the numbers suggest.