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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of financial inclusion (FI) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The paper uses the World Bank country-level data from 20 SSA countries for the year 2014.

The empirical findings in this study indicate that illiteracy is the major hindrance to FI in SSA. The findings provide useful information to government agencies and international development organisations. Also, the findings can help accelerate and strengthen FI strategies among SSA countries.

Some countries were excluded from the final analysis due to lack of data.

In the last two decades, there has been renewed interest in fighting financial exclusion in Africa. Therefore, this study provide evidence which clearly shows that enhancing literacy levels in a country can immensely contribute towards building the financially inclusive societies in the SSA region.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to empirically test the determinants of FI in SSA using the World Bank FI data set. Furthermore, this is the first attempt to estimate the determinants of FI with a combined data of SSA countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the empirical relationship between microsavings and the financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The approach in this paper is decidedly empirical, and employs data obtained from Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX). The data set consists of 350 microfinance MFIs domiciled in 36 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period covering 1998–2012.

The panel estimation results consistently show that there exists a negative and statistically significant relationship between microsavings and the financial performance of MFIs in SSA. This is perhaps surprising, albeit rational considering the exceedingly elevated operating expenses that ascend from mobilizing and managing microsavings, ceteris paribus, that could erode firm profitability. The paper draws policy implications from these important findings.

Even though generalized method of moment estimation technique was employed and robustness checks, the issue of endogeneity cannot be eliminated entirely.

Microfinance industry is one of the fastest growing segments of the financial sector in SSA. The industry is increasingly becoming the core of financial inclusion in the region where two-thirds of the adult population lack access to formal financial services. Therefore, gaining an in-depth understanding of the role microsavings play in the financial performance of MFIs can contribute to the growth of the industry.

This study is timely considering the significant growth in the number of microsavings – there are currently twice as many microsavings accounts in SSA as there are microcredits. More importantly, based on 400 MFIs, that reported data to MIX in 2016, the total microsavings stood at about US$11bn against an aggregate loan portfolio of about US$10.5bn. The remarkable growth of microsavings in SSA, from less than US$100m in 2000 to US$11bn in 2016, is the main motivation of undertaking this study.

This study investigates the possible effect of mobile money services, which forms part of FinTech, in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This study uses field data from the Chongwe district of Zambia. The data were collected in 2019.

The findings strongly suggest that (1) the factors that hinder access to credit and savings by the poor do not simply recede following the adoption of mobile money services and (2) that mobile money is not a silver bullet of ending financial exclusion but merely a tool which contributes to other financial inclusion strategies.

This study argues that mobile money is winning the battle but losing the war – implying that the service is mainly used to transfer funds (OTC transactions) among users.

This is the first study to have been conducted in Zambia to assess the possible contributing effect of FinTech (mobile money) on SDGs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between the copper price dynamics and economic growth in Zambia over the period from 1995 to 2015.

The study uses a data set assembled from five difference sources: the heritage foundation; the London metal exchange index; the Penn World Tables version 9.0; the total economy database; and the World Bank Development Indicators. The paper employs the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) approach as the estimation technique.

The estimates demonstrate that there exists a positive and significant relationship between movements in copper prices and economic growth in Zambia. The study draws policy implications from these findings.

This study is limited to the period from 1995 to 2015, this is due to lack of data on the country’s institutional indicators, trade openness and the real exchange rate.

There have been calls to diversify the economy of Zambia due to the recurring chaotic events, which are often induced by over-dependence on copper exports. Thus, the study findings will be useful to academia, policy makers and stakeholders with vested interest in the economy of Zambia.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study to investigate the causal relationship that exists between copper prices and economic growth in Zambia. The existing empirical studies in the domain have devoted their attention on establishing the relationship between commodity price movements and exchange rates in Zambia.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the landscape of financial services in Africa through the prism of a selection of research papers.

This is a review of literature that focusses on access to financial services (i.e. financial inclusion) and empirical findings from research papers in this issue of the journal.

The landscape of financial services in Africa is as heterogeneous as the countries comprising the continent. Common features include low levels of financial inclusion, low financial literacy, constrained access to credit, costly credit when available, gender discrimination in account ownership, and use and inefficient foreign exchange markets. Nevertheless, there are promising innovations, especially the mobile money innovation, which have the potential to foster more inclusive financial systems.

All the papers in this volume are based on original research shedding new insights on various aspects of financial services in Africa.