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The purpose of this paper is to understand the determinants of financial inclusion and the determinants of barriers to financial inclusion in India. Also, the purpose is to ascertain the determinants of informal financial activities in India.

The data have been collected from the Global Findex Database (Findex) 2017. Various measures of financial inclusion, namely, ownership formal accounts, use of accounts for saving and borrowing, ownership and use of the debit card are used. The independent variables used are: age, income, education and gender. Given the binary nature of dependent variables, this paper uses the Probit model to draw the inferences.

The results show that gender, age, education and income have a significant impact on the various measures of financial inclusion. Additionally, these factors have a significant impact on the informal saving and borrowing.

The given study uses the deferent measures of financial inclusion. An index of financial inclusion created using all the financial inclusion measures would be a better indicator of financial inclusion.

The results of this study would be useful for policymakers to identify the determinants and barriers of financial inclusion in India. The results show that policymakers should focus on the female population, in particular, and education and income enhancing measures, in general, to make financial inclusion more inclusive.

The study is the first of its kind to analyze financial inclusion in India using the Findex. Unlike previous studies, variables such as education and income are constructed more pragmatically. In particular, the study tries to understand the socio-economic determinants of financial inclusion measured as ownership of formal accounts, formal saving, formal credit, ownership of debit cards and use of debit cards. The study also analyzes the determinants of barriers to financial inclusion, savings (formal and informal) and borrowing (formal and informal).

This paper aims to measure the extent of digital financial inclusion (DFI) and examine the effect of socioeconomic characteristics on using government remittances and the adoption of digital financial services (DFS) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Bank Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database 2021 is used in this study, with a sample size of 3,000 Indian individuals. The study measured the demand-side analysis of DFI, namely, accessibility and usage of DFS with selected socioeconomic characteristics such as gender, age, income, education, being in the workforce and residential status of respondents. The dependent variable is binary in nature; therefore, the logistic regression model is used for the data analysis.

The results of the study reveal that individuals’ socioeconomic factors, such as female, all the age groups, tertiary education, third- and fourth-income quintile and workforce, are found to have a significant association with “accessibility,” an exogenous variable of DFS. Besides, respondents’ socioeconomic attributes, namely, female, tertiary education, income for all quintiles and workforce, are more likely to use DFSs in the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also finds the residential status of individuals is influencing the accessibility and usage of DFS.

The findings of the study provide valuable insights to the service providers and policymakers regarding the rapid expansion of DFS by digital infrastructure, simplifying the banking procedures and highlighting the importance of digital financial literacy to accomplish government goals through serving the unbanked population and also design strategies for achieving the objectives of Digital India: “Faceless, Paperless, and Cashless” of DFI across the country.

Notable studies used World Bank Findex survey data to explore the determinants of financial inclusion in general. This research is one among the few studies to explore the determinants of India’s DFI. Moreover, this study measured the effect of individual socioeconomic attributes on the adoption of DFSs during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has not been included in prior studies. Therefore, this study has added value to the existing literature on financial technology innovation and DFS for the sustainable development of emerging nations.

Women's financial inclusion has become a global research agenda, and past studies provide mixed evidence on the determinants of financial inclusion among women entrepreneurs across the globe. However, the impact of digital financial literacy on women's financial inclusion has seldom been addressed in the past literature.

The authors perform a cross-sectional analysis of 144 countries using the World Bank Global Findex Database.

This study’s probabilistic regression results indicate that women entrepreneurs with a higher degree of digital financial literacy are more likely to engage in formal banking channels.

The study findings have practical implications in terms of allowing regulators and banks to draw effective policies to attract women customers. Lack of effective regulatory intervention could lead to women exploring financial crimes, such as money laundering, due to their lack of involvement with the formal banking channel.

The authors explore the impact of digital financial literacy on women's financial inclusion. Such evidence is rare in the existing literature.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2022-0277

This paper analyses the evolution of the financial inclusion and its main determinants in seven Latin American countries.

The database used is the Global Findex from the World Bank for the latest data released that includes the years 2011 and 2014. The variables used are formal financial accounts, formal savings and formal credit as proxies of financial inclusion for the years of study. Moreover, the use of debit and credit cards is considered. The methodologies applied are the mean difference tests, in order to contrast the hypotheses of the inclusion evolution and binary probit regressions models.

The results of the analysis show that there is a positive evolution in the use of financial instruments in the countries of the sample, especially in the use of formal accounts. On the other hand, considering the characteristics of the individuals, age, level of education and income positively affect their financial inclusion.

There are no similar works for the region of study that allow us to evaluate the evolution of financial inclusion considering the variables selected in the literature. It is possible to clearly fulfil the proposed objective, highlighting the importance of implementing financial inclusion policies in view of the low percentage of use of the instruments in the analyzed countries.

Este trabajo analiza la evolución de la inclusión financiera y los principales determinantes que la afectan en siete países de América Latina.

Se utiliza la base de datos Global Findex del Banco Mundial, considerando los últimos datos relevados para los años 2011 yrs 2014. Se usa las variables cuentas financieras formales, ahorro formal y crédito formal como proxies de la inclusión financiera en los años de estudio, como así también la tenencia de tarjetas de débito y crédito. Se aplican test de diferencias de medias a fin de contrastar las hipótesis propuestas de evolución de la inclusión y se estiman modelos de regresión binaria probit.

Los resultados del análisis muestran que existe una evolución positiva en el grado de inclusión financiera. Se identifica un mayor uso de los instrumentos financieros en los países de la muestra, siendo la tenencia de cuentas en instituciones financieras formales la variable más significativa. Por otro lado, considerando las características de los individuos, se encuentra que la edad de las personas, el nivel de educación y de ingresos afectan positivamente a la inclusión financiera de los individuos.

No existen trabajos similares para la región de estudio analizada que nos permitan evaluar la evolución de la inclusión financiera considerando las variables proxies seleccionadas de la literatura. Se logra cumplir el objetivo planteado, destacando la importancia de implementar políticas de inclusión financiera ante el bajo porcentaje de uso de los instrumentos en los países de la muestra.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic link between financial inclusion and financial sector development (FSD) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper employs a panel vector autoregressive framework to examine the dynamic link between financial inclusion and FSD in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between FSD and financial inclusion in both the Sub-Saharan Africa countries sample and the full sample. It is evident that financial inclusion is a driver of FSD and vice versa.

The practical implication of this study is that financial inclusion should not only be pursued as a policy objective but it could also be an outcome variable of FSD and vice versa. This implies that African economies and governments in their effort to enhance financial inclusion, FSD can serve as a policy tool. This means that policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede FSD because the two are complementary. This suggests that we can achieve financial inclusion without sacrificing FSD and vice versa.

This paper provides first empirical evidence of the link between financial inclusion and FSD from the Sub-Saharan Africa perspective using data sourced from World Development Indicators spanning from 1990 to 2014 for 48 Sub-Saharan African economies and 217 economies in the world for the full sample.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between digital financial inclusion and economic growth in specific Asian countries, emphasizing the exploration of how digital financial inclusion dynamics impact gross domestic per capita income.

The study creates a digital financial inclusion composite index (DFII) by incorporating essential metrics from the Global Findex report. Economic growth is measured using Gross Domestic Product per capita income in its natural logarithmic form (LnPCI), with three control variables– employment-to-population ratio; population growth and inflation. The analysis utilizes a fixed-effect dummy variable model to examine the relationship, considering unobserved country-specific heterogeneity. 30 Asian countries have been selected for the study for the periods 2014, 2017 and 2021 based on their availability, as outlined in Table 4.

The research revealed a robust positive correlation between the Digital Financial Inclusion Index (DFII) and logarithmic GDP per capita income (LnPCI), indicating higher per capita income with enhanced digital financial inclusion. Employment and population exhibited minimal influence, whereas inflation had a notable negative effect on per capita income. Population growth showed a limited impact. The model demonstrated a high explanatory power for the dependent variable (high R-squared), and the residuals displayed low autocorrelation (Durbin–Watson of 1.96).

This study adds to the existing literature by examining the intricate connection between digital financial inclusion (DFI) and economic growth in 30 Asian countries, employing a comprehensive composite index for analysis.

This study aims to investigate the impact of terrorism on financial inclusion that is achieved through automated teller machine penetration and bank branch expansion.

Eight countries that are the most terrorized countries in the world were analysed using the panel fixed effect regression model and the generalized linear model.

The results provide evidence that terrorism reduces the level of financial inclusion in countries experiencing terrorism, but the presence of strong legal institutions, accountability governance institutions and political stability governance institutions mitigate the adverse effect of terrorism on financial inclusion.

A growing literature has shown that terrorism affects the economy, yet little is known about its impact on financial inclusion.

This paper aims at analysing the socio-economic characteristics, mobile phone ownership and banking behaviour as key determinants of digital financial inclusion in India.

This study is based on the Global Findex Survey of the World Bank covering 3,000 adult individuals in India. Simple statistical tools such as descriptive statistics, chi-square test and regression analysis with a marginal effect have been used for the data analysis.

About 35.2% of respondents have reported using digital financial services in the country. There is a significant association between the socio-economic profiles of individuals with the adoption of digital financial services in terms of gender, age, education, occupation and income. The marginal effect indicates that socio-economic factors, mobile phone ownership and banking behaviour of individuals towards borrowings and savings have indicated significant influence on digital financial inclusion. The analysis depicts that male with higher age, education, working status and higher income are more likely to adopt digital financial services. Further, individuals with mobile phone ownership and utilising banking in terms of borrowings and savings are more likely to adopt digital financial services.

As digital banking services have emerged as a preferred channel for financial service delivery, this study provides timely insights on developing user driven-strategies for promoting digital financial services.

Socio-economic characteristics, mobile phone ownership and banking behaviour are critical determinants of financial inclusion, so assessing its implications in the era of digitisation becomes imperative.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2022-0673.

Most research studies have examined financial inclusion from a supply-side perspective, which measures access and usage of formal financial services by banking outreach indicators, the number of borrowers and the availability of other financial services in a given area. However, this approach is often insufficient to nuance the degree of financial exclusion faced by segments of the population. This study's overall objective is to empirically examine demand-side determinants of financial inclusion.

This research examines the impact of these variables on the level to which an individual is financially included. Notably, the metric employed goes beyond the basic ownership of a bank account and measures the usage of financial services rather than just access. Quantitative data were collected through self-administered surveys targeting 456 individuals in Egypt in order to test the proposed hypotheses. Three different econometric models were tested using regression analysis.

The findings imply an insignificant relationship between financial literacy and financial inclusion. Results suggest that financial exclusion is associated with low trust in financial institutions, low-income level, low education level and being elderly, with a more substantial influence on income and education.

Egypt suffers from a lack of up-to-date demand-side data and data available at hand allow us to know very little about the factors underpinning financial inclusion. This study is contributing demand-side, up-to-date primary data, that provides multiple insights for Egypt regarding the subject, which helps provide answers and suggestions to policy implications.

This study examines the causal and dynamic link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study employed a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) framework to examine the dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The practical implications of these findings are that central governments and economic policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries should formulate and implement policies aimed at fostering financial inclusion if they are to attract more migrant remittances to promote economic growth and financial sector development. This suggests that these two variables are complementary and not contradictory. The results also suggest that central banks and other financial institutions can leverage the positive effect of financial inclusion of financial sector development to enhance the development of the financial sector instead of pursuing financial sector development as a policy objective. This means policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede or sacrifice migrant remittances, economic growth and financial sector development.

This paper is the first to construct a financial inclusion index to examine the link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances from the sub-Saharan Africa perspective

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612/