Analysis of the determinants of financial inclusion in Central and West Africa

By Issouf Soumaré, Fulbert Tchana Tchana, Thierry Martial Kengne. 2016

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Using data from the Global Financial Inclusion database (Global Findex) of the World Bank, this study attempts to identify and analyse the determinants of financial inclusion in Central and West Africa, two of the least financial inclusive regions of the Africa continent. The findings indicate that access to formal finance in the two regions is mainly driven by individual characteristics such as gender, education, age, income, residence area, employment status, marital status, household size and degree of trust in financial institutions. However, Central Africa and West Africa differ with the entire Africa region on a number of important determinants of access to finance. Specifically, educated, working-age, urban resident and full-time employed are significant individual characteristics of access to formal account in both regions and in Africa. However, being male and/or married are positive determinants of financial inclusion for Central Africa and Africa, whereas income is significant in West Africa and Africa. In addition, household size has a negative impact on account ownership in West African and not in Central Africa. When we use the other financial inclusion indicators (saving, borrowing or frequency of use), the above determinants remain all significant for Africa, but not necessarily for Central Africa or West Africa, where they have different degree of significance. As policy recommendations, governments and their partners in these regions should adopt or strengthen regulatory laws to better protect financial services consumers, enlarge population access to education, ease access to finance for the vulnerable groups (women, youth, poor, etc.), and continue their effort to increase the number of permanent and stable jobs created with special focus on gender and marital status in Central Africa and income and household size in West Africa.

Subfields: Accounting, Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/407437f492f8fccbb1221c3459d4feb4bf1a02d3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Accounting

  1. Lotus Gyamfuah Osei-Agyei
  2. J. Mohammed
  3. P. Asuming

In Economics and Econometrics

  1. Lotus Gyamfuah Osei-Agyei
  2. J. Mohammed
  3. P. Asuming

Citations in the corpus