Snapshot of financial health during peak COVID-19

FIBR

BFA’s third wave of the rapid online “dipstick” surveys of low- and lower-middle-income respondents in  Ghana, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, the US, and Vietnam show a further decline in people’s income, savings and increase in expenses especially in countries with the most severe lockdown measures.

A summary of the findings 

  • Income has decreased and expenses have increased for half of the respondents. Most who have loans indicate current and future inability to service outstanding debt.
  • Respondents in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and India are running out of their financial cushion quickly, having used up more than half of what they had put away as emergency funds, as a result of the crisis.
  • About two-thirds of respondents in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa have tapped into funds that were earmarked for future planned or opportunistic use, and used up more than half of it.
  • More than half of the respondents in six of the nine countries believe that the crisis will have significant/disruptive adverse effects on their financial well-being, or that of their household, though the proportion has decreased since Wave 2.

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