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The paper examined the mediating effect of social capital in the relationship between social intermediation and financial services in Ugandan micro finance industry. The purpose of this paper is to establish the role of social capital in the relationship between social intermediation and financial services access.

The paper adopted the MedGraph program, Sobel tests and Kenny and Baron approach to test for mediation effects.

It is clear that the true drivers of access to financial services in the micro finance industry are social intermediation and social capital. However, social capital exhibits partial form of mediation in the relationship between social intermediation and access to financial services.

A single research methodological approach was employed in the study. Owing to limitations associated therein, future research through interviews could be undertaken to triangulate.

Since social capital is found to be a causal chain in the relation between social intermediation and financial serves access in this study, managers in the micro finance industry should endeavor to reinforce agents of social capital (i.e. trust and social networks) since the lending relationships between the micro‐finance operators and marginalized communities are driven by social collateral.

This is the first study that focuses on testing the mediating effect of social capital in the relationship between social intermediation and financial services access in the Ugandan microfinance industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which social intermediation influences access to financial services in Uganda's microfinance industry.

The paper adopts analysis of moment structures (AMOS), a form of structural equation modeling (SEM) to test hypotheses.

It was established that social intermediation together with antecedents of social capital and managerial competence, account for 32 percent of the variance in access to financial services in the microfinance industry.

Only a single research methodological approach was employed and future research through interviews could be undertaken to triangulate. Furthermore, the findings from the present study are cross-sectional, future research should be undertaken to examine the social intermediation and its effects on access to financial services across time.

In order to boost the wealth of the active poor and microfinance institutions in Uganda, Uganda should always endeavor to build the human and institutional capacities through social intermediation so as to encourage the marginalized people to fully participate in formal financial intermediation in the microfinance industry.

This is the first study that focuses on testing the influence of social intermediation on access to financial services in Uganda's microfinance industry.