Measuring Payment System Development

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Following international trends which encourage the measurement of a country’s performance or level of development in various economic and social areas, the World Bank’s Payment Systems Development Group (PSDG) has made a first attempt to measure payment system development levels across countries.

This exercise is based on the data obtained from 142 country responses to the Global Payment Systems Survey carried out by the PSDG in 2007 and 2008 and published by the World Bank in June 2008 “Payment Systems Worldwide: a Snapshot. Outcomes of the Global Payment Systems Survey 2008".

In essence, this measurement exercise intends to synthesize a complex set of qualitative and quantitative payment system characteristics into categories reflecting various levels of development. In turn, the categories reflect a range of scores for each component of a national payments system that is measured.

This exercise intends to provide central banks, in particular in developing countries, with a tool to monitor developments in their payments systems and to compare them with other countries - a need expressed to the PSDG on many occasions.