ABSTRACT
In China, there has still been a lack of index evaluation systems which systematically measure the development of digital inclusive finance in Chinese counties. Based on the MYBank (Ant Group) business data of digital inclusive finance of 1,884 counties (county-level cities and autonomous counties) and their socio-economic statistics, this paper constructs an index system of the development of digital inclusive finance in Chinese counties from the dimensions of the breadth and depth of the outreach of, and the quality of digital inclusive finance, and puts forward the method of measuring the scores of the indicators at all levels in this index system. This paper obtains thus the scores of these counties for the period of 2017~2019, which systematically reflects the development of digital inclusive finance in these counties. The research shows that the overall development of digital inclusive finance of counties has been greatly improved in all the macro regions and provinces of China, but there are obvious differences among the macro regions and provinces; the breadth and depth of the outreach of digital inclusive finance are greatly improved, and the improvement of service quality is relatively insufficient; the development of digital loans and the approval of line of digital credit is the fastest, followed by the development of mobile payment, while the development of digital wealth management and digital insurance is relatively slow. Generally speaking, there is a huge space left for the development of digital inclusive financial services in China. It is necessary to further strengthen the construction of digital inclusive financial infrastructure in Chinese counties and improve a relevant framework of rules and national and local laws and policies, the system of digital inclusive financial services and the literacy of the residents relating their knowledge of digital inclusive finance in these counties.
