Search results

This paper investigates the magnitude of financial inclusion in terms of ownership and usage of financial products across gender in Saudi Arabia based on the World Bank's Global Financial Inclusion (GFI) survey data.

This study derives the data from the GFI survey, covering 1,009 respondents from Saudi Arabia. The data on ownership and usage of financial products along with demographic characteristics of the surveyed respondents have been extracted for the analysis. The data have been analyzed with the help of statistical techniques, such as the chi-square test, and marginal effects for identifying the factors affecting financial inclusion across gender.

There is a significant association between financial inclusion and gender in terms of ownership and usage. About 82% of males have reported having a bank account with financial institutions, whereas only 60% females have reported ownership of a bank account in Saudi Arabia. The ownership and usage of financial products are comparatively more among males than females. The analysis of the marginal effect of gender shows a significant and positive impact on financial inclusion, implying that males are 10 and 13% more likely to own and use financial products, respectively, as compared to females. Further, marginal effect estimates for ownership and usage for males and females indicate that a set of independent variables related to age, level of education, occupation and income level of the respondents have a significant impact on financial inclusion.

Financial inclusion across gender is the first step of creating an inclusive society and empowering both males and females equally. Findings indicated an inclination of financial inclusion towards males. The research findings provide key policy insights for achieving the Vision 2030 of Saudi Arabia by strengthening gender inclusion in its growth story and ensuring the participation of females at workplaces.

Most of the studies have included bank account ownership in a financial institution as an indicator of financial inclusion. The authors have included ownership and usage of a variety of financial products for assessing the determinants of financial inclusion across gender, which provides empirical evidence on the magnitude of financial inclusion.

This study aims to identify the involuntary barriers of financial inclusion which are affecting the usage of Islamic microfinance services in PROCAPEC institution located in Nouakchott-Mauritania. Subsequently, it also examines the effect of gender as a moderator in the model.

Primary data was collected through a cross-sectional questionnaire from 381 beneficiaries of PROCAPEC – a major Islamic microfinance provider in Mauritania. In methodology, the study uses confirmatory factor analysis to identify relevant involuntary factors affecting usage, followed by structural equation modelling to test the impact of these factors on the usage of Islamic microfinance (IsMF) products.

Two of the four factors are statistically significant in affecting the usage of IsMF products, namely, affordability and eligibility. Gender is a moderator in the relationship between affordability and usage, as well as eligibility and usage.

Policymakers, practitioners and managers of Islamic microfinance institutions can consider these factors and focus on strategies, including pricing and promotion, which aim to further develop the Islamic microfinance industry in Mauritania. Also, reducing documentation required from clients and adopting lenient rules to provide suitable products will enhance the use of IsMF products, which may lead to more customers’ attraction.

Although several researchers have articulated financial inclusion, this study sheds light on a specific dimension of financial inclusion to determine the factors impacting IsMF products’ usage. In Mauritania, there are few studies about microfinance. This study will be amongst the pioneer contribution to the geographical gap.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) aims at upholding socio-economic condition of deprived communities prevailing in society as well as bringing profitability for corporate companies themselves. This study investigates to what extent the CSR initiatives of financial institutions in Bangladesh have been able to reach out to deprived communities and support various dimensions of financial inclusion (FI) in the country.

In this study, both supply-side and demand-side data are included and discussed rigorously as tools to cross-check the result. Both qualitative and quantitative data are incorporated, and graphs and tables are used to represent the critical information better. A triangulation of in-depth interviews with secondary data is used to ensure rigor and trustworthiness. The triangulation approach works as a method to verify secondary data by interviewees in this study.

The result shows a positive geographical and demographical penetration of CSR activities, but it does not necessarily bring FI in all cases. This study identifies some key issues that prevail in the current context of Bangladesh, such as usage, distance, quality and cost of financial products.

This study makes use of both supply-side and demand-side information and thus explain the reasons behind the involuntary exclusion of financial services.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the factors that drive gender income differences among farmers in Cambodia with a focus on the role of formal credit.

To decompose the gender income gap, this article employs the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique, while a two-stage least square (2SLS) regression is also employed to check the causal effect of formal credit usage on earnings.

Results show a positive effect of formal credit on farmers' earnings and the gender gap in formal credit usage is not found. Despite that, formal credit still contributes to the gender earnings gap with a higher return to credit usage for male farmers. This can be due to the difference in the level of education, financial literacy and other dimensions in favor of men, allowing them to use credit more effectively than women.

The findings underline the importance of boosting general and financial education among female farmers in Cambodia. Meanwhile, the expansion of access to financial services for women must be accompanied by policies addressing gender gaps in other economic and social dimensions, so that women are able to reap the potential benefit of using those financial services.

Lack of research focuses on the link between the gender gap in the use of financial services and the gender income gap. The significant gender gap in returns to formal credit usage found in this study demonstrates that the benefits of gender equity in access to and usage of financial services also depend on the effects of other indicators that policymakers must be aware of.

This qualitative study aims to examine bankers’ perspectives regarding financial inclusion, the challenges it faces and the scope for improvement. This research proposes a financial inclusion model, considering the inputs received by bankers. Financial exclusion of different sections is an issue common to emerging countries.

Data for qualitative research were collected through interviews with bank officials. The information was gathered from 32 bankers from India’s several zones (North, South, West and East). The data were collected from bankers from different public and private sector banks. Thematic analysis was performed up to the point of saturation to study the response received from bankers.

Bank-related issues such as frequent computer problems, network connectivity problems, costs, a shortage of bank branches, fewer transactions through automated teller machines and a shortage of banking staff affect customers’ confidence in formal banking. Banking services are disrupted by a lack of trust in banking correspondents (BCs), as they are not regular employees of banks. Limits on daily transactions discourage high-value customers from using BCs and kiosks. The time spent on administrative formalities impacts customers. Financial inclusion is affected by availability, accessibility, usage and affordability. Digital financial literacy is essential for ease of transaction, but awareness about financial products helps protect customers from cyber scams. The findings of this research would benefit financial institutions globally in developing their businesses and helping to achieve financial inclusion and the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This research paper undertakes a qualitative analysis of the views collected from bankers. Bankers are crucial stakeholders in the successful implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Policy of the Government of India. Bankers’ perspectives will be important not only for India and its researchers but also in the global context, as the UN’s SDGs focus on leaving no one behind.

This study aims to examine the impact of financial inclusion on per capita gross domestic product (GDP) at varying degrees of financial inclusion for a sample of 76 developing countries between 2011 and 2017. To evaluate the heterogeneous impact, this paper constructs the multi-dimension index of financial inclusion to classify sample countries into two sub-samples in terms of the value of FIID, taking account of three dimensions of financial inclusion: access, usage and availability.

This study attempts to identify the presence of reverse causality and long-run relationship between financial inclusion and economic growth by using the Granger causality test (Wald test) and three alternative panel cointegration tests (Kao Test, Pedroni Test, Westerlund Test) respectively. Because of the existence of the bi-directional causality between financial inclusion and per capita GDP, this study uses a fixed effect instrumental variable model with lagged dependent variable to get unbiased estimators from the panel regressions for sample countries.

This paper finds a strong positive impact of financial inclusion on per capita GDP growth in sample developing countries, controlling for labor market structure, financial institutions’ efficacy, infrastructural and governance issues. This study suggests that economic growth will be high in developing economies with a higher level of financial inclusion; however, the positive impact for two sub-samples countries (low and medium level of inclusion and high level of inclusion) are heterogeneous. The estimated result explains that a 1% increase in the financial inclusion index leads to a 0.0153% point increase in the per capita GDP for the countries with a low and medium level of financial inclusion, while this positive impact is significantly higher, 0.0794% point for countries with the high level of financial inclusion. This study also suggests that the higher concentration in the financial market by few agents and the lower level of governance may have an adverse impact on economic growth for the economies with a low and medium level of financial inclusion.

This study is an original study that contributes to the research gap by explaining the heterogeneous impact of financial inclusion on economic growth at varying degrees of inclusion in the two sub-sample countries. Moreover, this study posits greater appeal as it explores the issue using the sample of only developing economies.

Notes how marketing philosophy and practices have become increasingly important in the financial services industry. Uses a segmentation approach to understanding consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction and choice behaviour in relation to affluence in the financial services market. Offers guidelines from this segmental approach for devising appropriate marketing strategies. Concludes that deregulation in the financial services industry has led to a lack of operation differentiation on several levels.

The purpose of this research is to undertake an examination of the impacts of socio‐demographic and economic variables on the probability of purchasing financial products. There is relatively little empirical research that has been taken to understand how the underlying economy affects customers' subsequent financial product purchase behaviours. Understanding this influence would improve prediction of when purchases will occur and hence is important for the Customer lifetime value models of financial service organisations.

Two proportional hazard modelling approaches – Cox and Weibull – are compared in terms of predictive ability on a data set from a major insurance company. The risk factors for purchase are both economic and socio‐demographic.

The results show that the external economic environment is an extremely important influence in driving customers' financial products purchasing behaviours. Furthermore, the results also indicate that Cox's proportional hazard models are superior to Weibull proportional hazard models in this case because of an annual purchase effect.

Financial organisations need to consider the current economic conditions before determining how much marketing effort to undertake.

The originality of this paper is that it considers economic conditions and socio‐demographic variables in modelling the long run purchase behaviour of customers for insurance and savings products. It has a large data set from a major insurance company. It is also one of the first papers to make a detailed comparison between the semi‐parametric and parametric proportional hazard models in the bank marketing area.

The objective of this systematic literature review (SLR) is to explore the current state of research in the field of household finance (HF). This study aims to summarize the existing research to highlight the importance of household finance in a nation’s economy. By exploring all conceptual and applied implications of HF, this study projects directions for future research to develop a comprehensive understanding of the subject.

This SLR is based on 112 articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 2006 and 2020 (Table 3). The methodology comprises five steps, namely, formulation of research questions, identification of studies, their selection and evaluation, analyses and syntheses and presentation of results.

The findings of this study show that studies on HF are gradually increasing worldwide with the USA registering the highest number of published research on the topic during the period under scrutiny. Notwithstanding the increasing attention and research on HF, empirical research in emerging economies is lagging. Additionally, this study finds that HF structure presents a perfect setting to understand how households compose their financial portfolio, make financial decisions and what factors influence their decisions.

This study is an SLR – an accurate and accepted method of reviewing available literature on a selected subject. However, the selection of inclusion and exclusion criteria depends on the researchers’ rationale which might lead to research bias. This should be considered an inherent limitation of SLR.

By synthesizing the contents of extant literature, this study presents important insights into HF. This study underlines the most discussed topics in the domain and identifies potential investigation areas. This study gives the knowledge of leading articles, authors and journals and informs scholars and academicians about the areas that need further investigation by portraying the complete picture of the subject in a systematic manner. Further, this study highlights that households make suboptimal financial decisions that affect their financial well-being. To reduce the adverse impacts of these decisions, policymakers and financial institutions must take steps to improve households’ use of formal financial markets. Household decisions can be reformed by enhancing consumers’ knowledge about financial products and services. Furthermore, households can be served better by offering customization in traditional financial products.

This study synthesizes the main findings of selected literature on HF. The expansion of studies on HF has generated the need to review the existing literature in a systematic manner. To the researchers’ best knowledge, this SLR is the first thorough study of available articles in the HF domain. This study presents the scope of future research by highlighting numerous aspects and functions of HF.

The study presents and evaluates a proposition that there is market information bundled with the mobile money (m-money) system. Also, that such information is disseminated to farmers in the process of their normal financial transactions and business interactions. This market information is important to mitigate the price uncertainty of farm products.

The empirical analysis is conducted with a two-stage econometric procedure. First, a probit model is used to estimate the likelihood of m-money take-up by farm entrepreneurs. Second, the ordinary least squares model is used to regress the farming price uncertainty index on the m-money take-up, which is quantified with a set of predicted values from the probit model in the first stage. The data used in econometric estimation come from Kenya's FinAccess Household Survey published in 2016.

The results of this paper show a negative effect of m-money service take-up on the price uncertainty index. A one unit increase in the m-money system is associated with a 12% reduction in the price uncertainty index. The authors interpret this as saying that access to the m-money system by farm business has a beneficial spillover effect on product risk mitigation, ceteris paribus.

The implication of this research is that policy initiatives which support farm entrepreneurs to access the m-money system should be encouraged not only for their financial inclusion advantage but also for their positive externality on product risk amelioration for rural farm businesses.

The paper introduces an idea that the m-money system is bundled with relevant information for mitigating price risk to the benefit of rural farm businesses.