A recent survey has revealed that  87% of Ugandans aged 10 years and above do not own a functional bank or savings account.

The National Labour Force Survey, 2021, which was done by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), indicates that only 9% of the population had a functional bank/minority depository institutions (MDI) account, while only 3% of the entire population possess a microfinance institution/SACCOS account.

“A higher percentage of males (12%) than females (6%) had a functional bank/MDI account. A higher percentage of the population in urban areas (17%) had functional bank/MDI accounts compared to the population in rural areas (6%),” reads an excerpt from the report.

The survey also explored the country factoring in a regional aspect, this indicated that Kampala (27%) and Buganda South (12%) had the highest percentage of the population owning functional bank/MDI accounts while Karamoja had the lowest (4%) banked population.

The geographical coverage of the NLFS 2021 included all 135 districts and 11 cities in Uganda as of July 2020. 

The report was majorly focused on the household-based population and it deliberately excluded institutionalised populations such as schools and other special areas.

The data collected from the field was spread out over a period of six months which commenced in June and ended in December 2021.

An earlier report released by the Deposit Protection Fund shows that more than 90% of Ugandans who hold bank accounts do not keep more than one million shillings at any one time in their accounts, an indication of the poor savings culture and rate of poverty in Uganda.

According to the Deposit Protection Fund, Uganda has an estimated 14 million bank accounts. Of all these accounts, only about 2% have deposits that exceed 10 million shillings, in contrast to the rest, about 93% have less than 1 million.

The 2020 financial capability survey indicates that only 15% of Ugandans save their money in deposit-taking financial institutions that are regulated by the central bank, the same report reveals that 17% save using their phones on their mobile money accounts which they see to be more convenient.