This blog series coincides with the release of comparable cross-country demand-side data on how the world’s poor save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The World Bank’s Development Research Group, with a 10-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has constructed the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database. As the first public database of indicators that consistently measure people’s use of financial products across 148 economies and over time, the Global Findex database fills a major gap in the financial inclusion data landscape.