In this paper we study the determinants of access of people to financial services in Mexico, based on the national survey of level of life (ENVViH–1). We study separately access to bank saving accounts, credit cards and access to saving accounts provided by several formal institutions. As expected, individual’s age, education level, asset ownership and income level are significant access determinants; nevertheless, except for education, their impact on the probability of access is limited. There seems to be another set of variables that affect access: we find that having another family member with access increases dramatically the probability of access; this points out to a cultural/information or network element as access determinant, that has not been stressed in the literature. We also find that the presence of a bank’s branch in the community does not have an important impact on access probability.