The Storm Belt Savings Gap: Who Has a Cushion When Disaster Strikes
Introduction
When tropical storm Lala slammed into Hawaii’s Big Island on August 16, 2026, floodwaters cut off entire communities — and with them, access to branches, ATMs, and payment rails. The Guardian reported “devastation” across parts of the island, and Hawaii Public Radio described communities isolated by flooded roads.
Hawaii is part of the United States, where 64.9% of adults save at a formal financial institution. For most American households, the storm is a disruption of access to money that exists. But across the world’s storm belts — the western Pacific, the Caribbean, the Bay of Bengal, the cyclone corridors of the Indian Ocean — the more fundamental question is whether households have any formal savings to access at all. In Madagascar, the answer is 4.8% of adults. This report maps the savings cushion across storm-prone economies, using the World Bank Global Findex survey and the IMF’s Financial Access Survey.
The Data: Formal Savings in Storm-Prone Economies
The Global Findex measure of formal savings captures the share of adults who saved or set aside money at a bank, credit union, microfinance institution, or mobile money account in the past year. Among economies regularly exposed to tropical cyclones, the spread is enormous:
| Economy | Formal savings (% of adults) | Data year | Global rank (of 142) |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 64.9% | 2021 | 10 |
| Japan | 63.8% | 2021 | 12 |
| Vietnam | 43.1% | 2024 | 36 |
| Dominican Republic | 27.3% | 2024 | 57 |
| Jamaica | 24.0% | 2021 | 65 |
| India | 23.8% | 2024 | 66 |
| Kenya | 20.1% | 2024 | 78 |
| Mexico | 17.2% | 2024 | 84 |
| Honduras | 14.8% | 2024 | 95 |
| El Salvador | 12.3% | 2024 | 102 |
| Philippines | 10.3% | 2024 | 105 |
| Guatemala | 10.3% | 2024 | 106 |
| Bangladesh | 9.7% | 2024 | 107 |
| Mozambique | 8.3% | 2024 | 120 |
| Nicaragua | 6.7% | 2024 | 130 |
| Madagascar | 4.8% | 2024 | 136 |
What stands out: High-income storm-exposed economies — the United States, Japan — sit near the global top, with six in ten adults holding formal savings. Middle-income typhoon corridors like Vietnam (43.1%) and India (23.8%) sit mid-table. But most of the world’s most cyclone-prone economies are in the bottom third: Bangladesh (9.7%), Mozambique (8.3%), and Madagascar (4.8%) — the same economies that face repeated landfalls from Bay of Bengal and southwest Indian Ocean cyclones.
For the full global ranking, see our report on where formal savings are highest in 2026.
Analysis: Mobile Money Is the Missing Cushion
The formal savings figure understates the true cushion in economies where households save through mobile wallets. The Global Findex “formal and mobile money savings” indicator adds savings held in mobile money accounts to bank-based savings — and it changes the picture dramatically for storm-prone Africa:
| Economy | Formal savings only | With mobile money savings | Combined rank (of 142) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghana | 25.9% | 67.2% | 7 |
| Senegal | 24.1% | 58.3% | 24 |
| Kenya | 20.1% | 54.4% | 28 |
| Uganda | 13.4% | 53.6% | 30 |
| Zambia | 9.5% | 50.1% | 34 |
| Vietnam | 43.1% | 44.5% | 41 |
| Nigeria | 37.7% | 43.4% | 43 |
| Philippines | 10.3% | 23.9% | 90 |
The pattern: In West and East Africa, mobile money turns a thin bank-based cushion into a substantial one. Ghana jumps from 25.9% to 67.2% — a rate that would place it alongside Japan and the United States at the top of the global table. Uganda and Zambia more than quadruple their savings rate once wallets are counted.
But mobile money does not close the gap everywhere. In the Philippines, a country that averages roughly 20 typhoons a year, adding mobile money lifts savings from 10.3% to only 23.9% — better, but still leaving three-quarters of adults without a formal savings buffer as each storm season arrives. For the mechanics of how these systems work, see our explainer on mobile money agent networks and the ranking of formal and mobile money savings.
Context: Deposit Depth and Diaspora Money
Two related indicators frame the cushion question.
Bank deposits as a share of GDP (IMF Financial Access Survey) shows how much of an economy’s wealth sits inside the banking system. Japan leads the storm-prone group at 166.6% of GDP (2024); Vanuatu — one of the most cyclone-exposed countries on Earth, with no Global Findex savings reading — still holds 102.6% of GDP in bank deposits (2021). At the other extreme, Haiti (20.2% of GDP, 2020) and Madagascar (22.3%, 2024) have banking systems that hold less than a quarter of annual output.
Remittances are the second buffer, and they are enormous in the storm belt. The Philippines received $40.3 billion in 2024 (rank 3 globally), Haiti $4.1 billion (rank 47), and Jamaica $3.6 billion (rank 50). After a disaster, these flows often rise — diaspora relatives send money precisely when local income collapses. For how that dynamic works, see our articles on how remittance flows buffer economic shocks and where remittances matter most, plus the 2026 ranking of global remittance inflows.
None of these buffers substitute for the others. Savings are the household’s own money, available immediately; remittances arrive from outside; insurance pays out later, if at all. Households in storm-prone economies typically combine all three — a point we develop in our explainer on how savings buffer natural disasters.
What the Data Cannot Tell You
Three caveats matter when reading these numbers:
- Participation, not amounts. A country where 64.9% of adults save formally — the United States — may have many households with thin balances. The Findex measure counts who saved, not how much.
- Informal savings are invisible. Savings clubs, cash kept at home, livestock — all common in storm-prone low-income economies — are excluded, so the cushion is understated where informality dominates. The Global Findex-based picture is complemented by measures of account ownership and digital payment adoption.
- Access can fail in the moment. A savings account is only useful during a storm if the network, the branch, or the agent is reachable — the question our ATM density and disaster resilience report and financial infrastructure in storm-prone economies examine directly.
Sources & method
Formal savings and combined formal/mobile-money savings figures come from the World Bank Global Findex Database (“Saved at a financial institution” and “Saved at a financial institution or mobile money account”, % of adults 15+), 2021 and 2024 waves, covering 142 economies. Bank deposits as a share of GDP come from the IMF Financial Access Survey, most recent year per country (2020–2024). Remittance inflow figures are from World Bank/KNOMAD data as compiled in our datasets. All values are observed data for the cited year; no projections are used. For the definitions behind the indicators and how countries are compared, see the methodology page, and for a guide to reading these statistics responsibly, see reading fintech statistics responsibly.