Getting Paid Digitally 2026: Wages into Accounts and Mobile Money
How workers actually receive their pay is one of the more revealing indicators in the World Bank’s Global Findex survey. It sits at the intersection of financial inclusion and the real economy: a wage paid into an account is, for many people, the single transaction that pulls them into the formal financial system and keeps them there month after month. This report works through what the latest Findex waves show about wage digitization — the share of adults paid their wages into an account, where it is highest and lowest, and where mobile money has emerged as a wage rail in its own right.
Every figure below comes from FinStatGlobe’s derived country datasets, built from the Global Findex extract. The headline indicator is the share of adults (age 15+) paid wages into an account; a second indicator tracks the narrower share paid wages into a mobile money account. Observed values keep their actual survey years — most economies’ latest observation is from the 2021 or 2024 wave, a few from 2022 — and no 2026 projections exist for these survey-based indicators, so none appear here. Throughout, higher means more wage digitization.
The global picture: a median of 23.4%, and a long upper tail
Our derived data cover wage-into-account payments for 140 economies. Across the 139 with a computable latest value, the median share of adults paid wages into an account is 23.4%; the unweighted mean is higher, at 27.6%, pulled up by a cluster of advanced economies at the top of the distribution. The spread is wide and the bottom heavy: 10 economies sit under 5%, 20 more in the 5–10% band, and 33 in the 10–20% band — meaning 63 of the 139, about 45%, fall below 20%.
The middle of the distribution is comparatively thin: 20 economies land in the 20–30% range, 17 in 30–40%, and 15 in 40–50%. A high-digitization cluster of 17 economies sits in the 50–60% band, with 7 more at 60% or above — almost all high-income European, Nordic, and advanced East Asia & Pacific economies. That long upper tail is exactly why the mean (27.6%) runs above the median (23.4%): a handful of very digitized labour markets pull the average above the typical country.
At the bottom of the distribution the numbers are stark. In South Sudan, 0.7% of adults were paid wages into an account in 2021; in Niger, 3.2% in 2024; in Yemen, 3.2% in 2022; in Afghanistan, 3.7% in 2021; and in Ethiopia, 4.1% in 2024. In each, wage digitization is a rarity rather than a norm.
The top ten: Nordics, the Antipodes, and advanced Asia
The ten highest wage-into-account rates in the dataset are dominated by Nordic and European economies surveyed in the 2021 wave, alongside New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, and Singapore.
| Rank | Economy | Wages into an account | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iceland | 76% | 2021 |
| 2 | Estonia | 69.9% | 2021 |
| 3 | Sweden | 67.9% | 2021 |
| 4 | Norway | 67.6% | 2021 |
| 5 | Denmark | 67.5% | 2021 |
| 6 | New Zealand | 64.1% | 2021 |
| 7 | Australia | 62.8% | 2021 |
| 8 | Finland | 62.5% | 2021 |
| 9 | South Korea | 59.5% | 2021 |
| 10 | Singapore | 58.8% | 2021 |
Source: World Bank Global Findex (2021 wave), via FinStatGlobe derived datasets.
Iceland leads at 76% of adults in 2021, the only economy above 70%. Estonia follows at 69.9%, with Sweden (67.9%), Norway (67.6%), and Denmark (67.5%) tightly bunched behind. South Korea (59.5%) and Singapore (58.8%) round out the list as the advanced East Asia & Pacific entrants.
Regional patterns: a forty-point spread in medians
Regional medians of the latest values span more than 40 points. North America’s two economies have a median of 53.4%. Europe & Central Asia follows at 42.8% across 45 economies, then East Asia & Pacific at 38.1% across 16. Latin America & the Caribbean sits at 19.3% across 20 economies. At the other end, the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan region records 11.9% across 16 economies, Sub-Saharan Africa 9.6% across 36, and South Asia 9.5% across 4.
| Region | Median wages into an account | Economies |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 53.4% | 2 |
| Europe & Central Asia | 42.8% | 45 |
| East Asia & Pacific | 38.1% | 16 |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 19.3% | 20 |
| Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan | 11.9% | 16 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 9.6% | 36 |
| South Asia | 9.5% | 4 |
Source: World Bank Global Findex, via FinStatGlobe derived datasets (latest observation per economy).
In other words, in the typical Sub-Saharan African, MENA, or South Asian economy, fewer than one adult in eight was paid wages into an account in the latest survey — versus roughly two in five in the typical East Asia & Pacific economy and more than one in two in North America. As the final section shows, though, for parts of Sub-Saharan Africa the account-based number understates how much wage digitization is actually happening on mobile rails.
Change over time: large risers, and some advanced-economy declines
The clearest movers since 2014 are emerging markets where digital-payroll and wage-protection reforms took hold. The biggest single riser is Saudi Arabia, up 45.6 points, from 9.7% of adults in 2014 to 55.4% in 2021 — a shift largely reflecting wage-protection and digital-payroll reforms. Mongolia rose 30.5 points (25.6% in 2014 to 56.1% in 2024), Vietnam 29.2 points (7.8% to 37%, 2024), Kyrgyzstan 24.4 points (5.2% to 29.6%, 2024), and South Korea 21.6 points (37.9% to 59.5%, 2021).
The fallers are fewer and concentrated among advanced economies, where the declines reflect a change in how Findex captured account-based wage receipt between survey rounds rather than a real collapse in digital payroll. The United Arab Emirates fell 26.0 points (41.8% in 2014 to 15.7% in 2021), Switzerland 21.2 points (57.3% to 36%, 2021), the United Kingdom 15.2 points (51.5% to 36.3%, 2021), France 11.2 points (48.3% to 37.1%, 2021), and Lithuania 8.8 points (44.1% to 35.3%, 2021). These survey-driven shifts are a reminder to read year-on-year comparisons against the methodology, not as raw behaviour change.
Who gets paid into an account: the gender gap
The Findex reports wage-into-account receipt separately for women and men for the headline indicator, with per-country gaps recorded in percentage points (women minus men); the mobile-wage indicator carries no gender split. Where gaps appear, they most often run against women. The widest in the data include Slovenia, where 45% of women versus 71.6% of men were paid wages into an account in 2021 — a 26.6-point gap — and Saudi Arabia (40.1% versus 65.7% in 2021, −25.7 points). Turkiye shows 20.9% of women versus 45.2% of men in 2024 (−24.2 points), Hungary 40.5% versus 63.3% in 2021 (−22.8 points), and Iran 10% versus 30.5% in 2021 (−20.5 points).
Not every gap runs the same way. In Italy, women were paid wages into an account 9.2 points more often than men in 2021, and in Israel 5.2 points more in 2021. The smallest gaps are in Switzerland (−0.3 points), Argentina (−1.0 points), and Austria (−1.4 points). The pattern is uneven enough that the gender story depends heavily on the specific labour market.
Mobile money is a wage rail, mostly in a handful of markets
Alongside the headline indicator, the Findex tracks a narrower channel: adults paid wages into a mobile money account. The two are complementary, not additive — the mobile-money figure measures the subset of wage recipients paid through that channel, which matters mostly where mobile money substitutes for bank accounts. Across the 99 economies reporting it, the channel is far more compressed and far lower than account-based wages overall: the median is just 6.0% and the mean 7.3%, ranging from 0% in Yemen to 39% in Mongolia. Fully 40 of the 99 economies fall under 5%, 36 in the 5–10% band, 19 in 10–20%, and only 4 above 20%. Mobile money is a niche-but-meaningful wage rail, not a mainstream channel.
Where it does matter, it can carry a large share of account-based wage payments. The examples below pair each economy’s account-based wage figure with its mobile-money wage figure (latest years).
| Economy | Wages into an account | Wages into mobile money |
|---|---|---|
| Mongolia | 56.1% | 39% |
| Kazakhstan | 51.1% | 25% |
| Kenya | 26.9% | 21.3% |
| Senegal | 22.6% | 20.1% |
Source: World Bank Global Findex, via FinStatGlobe derived datasets (latest observation per economy).
Mongolia has the highest mobile-wage share in the dataset at 39%, with mobile money carrying the majority of its account-based wage payments. Kazakhstan routes about half of its account-based wage digitization through mobile money (25% against 51.1%). In Kenya, mobile money is nearly the entire account-based wage channel — 21.3% against 26.9%, a classic M-Pesa-driven pattern — and Senegal is similar (20.1% against 22.6%).
Of the top 15 mobile-money wage markets that also report account wages, 6 are in Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Senegal, Botswana, Ghana, Eswatini, and Zambia), alongside Central Asian cases (Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) and emerging markets such as Vietnam, Brazil, and Thailand. The mobile-wage risers mirror the account-channel risers: Mongolia rose 37.9 points (1.1% to 39%, 2014–2024), Kazakhstan 25.0 points (0% to 25%), Senegal 19.8 points, Vietnam 19.7 points, Brazil 18.1 points, and Thailand 17.5 points.
Yet regionally the mobile-wage medians are flat and low everywhere: Latin America & the Caribbean 7.5% (18 economies), East Asia & Pacific 7.3% (10), Europe & Central Asia 6.9% (20), Sub-Saharan Africa 5.3% (36), MENA-AfPak 2.0% (11), and South Asia 1.4% (4). Sub-Saharan Africa’s regional median is modest, even though its individual leaders — Kenya and Senegal — rank globally high. The lesson is the same as on the savings side: in a handful of African and Central Asian markets, the representative digital wage lands on a phone, not in a branch, and any analysis that stops at the account-based indicator misses where that channel is concentrated.
Sources & method
All statistics in this report come from the World Bank Global Findex survey, as stored in FinStatGlobe’s source extract and the per-country derived datasets behind this site’s payroll and earned-wage-access category. The headline indicator is “received wages into an account” (series fin32.acc, share of adults age 15+), captured here as wage-account-payment-statistics; the second indicator is “received wages into a mobile money account” (series fin34b), captured as mobile-wage-payment-statistics. Rankings, the top-ten and bottom slices, and per-country figures are taken from FinStatGlobe’s derived rankings, where higher values mean more wage digitization (rank 1 = highest share); the wage-account ranking spans 140 economies and the mobile-wage ranking spans 99. Medians, means, distribution buckets, and regional medians were computed across the derived datasets — 139 economies with a computable wage-account headline (median 23.4%, mean 27.6%) and 99 mobile-wage economies (median 6.0%, mean 7.3%). Risers and fallers compare each economy’s earliest and latest series points; advanced-economy declines reflect Findex’s shift in how account-based wage receipt was captured between survey rounds. Gender gaps are available only for the headline indicator. Each figure is labelled with its actual survey year; no 2026 projections are shown, because none exist for these survey indicators. For the full pipeline — how source data becomes a country page — see the methodology page.