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Top1. Introduction And Background
Worldwide, countries undertake to attain goals known as macroeconomics, intended to achieve ideal economic stability. This is in addition to the desire to achieve sustainable development goals that, among others, include poverty eradication and balancing inequalities so as to ensure prosperity and inclusive growth for their citizens. Hence, for inclusive growth and social justice, countries must increase opportunities for their citizens to access services regardless of their class, race, gender, religion, and geographical location (El-Zoghbi, 2016). Inclusive growth and social justice can be achieved by improving political, financial, and educational structures, while increasing financial inclusion (Andrianaivo & Kpodar, 2011). Financial inclusion, which is the provision of access to financial services and products to individuals, regardless of status or geographical location, has many benefits. Benefits include the attainment of the millennium sustainable development goals such as poverty and hunger eradication, health, and quality education improvement, as well as provision of acceptable employment and economic growth (Allen et al., 2014; Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2015; Dwivedi et al., 2022).
The definition of financial inclusion may vary from one context to another − different countries or regions have differing economic development (Sahgal, 2016). However, despite the varying definitions, the concept of financial inclusion should embrace the pursuit of making financial services accessible at affordable cost to all individuals and businesses (Mehrotra & Yetman, 2015; Dwivedi et al., 2022). Financial inclusion should also infer that individuals and businesses have similar access to the needed and affordable financial products and services. Such may include transactions, savings, payments, credit and insurance; and must be delivered in a responsible and sustainable way (World Bank Group, 2017). Recently, the concept of financial inclusion has become increasingly important. This is largely because financial institutions must expand their infrastructure so as to cover the rural population in a holistic manner, for economic growth (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2015; Kauda, 2019; Ozili, 2020). Financial inclusion plays a vital role in poverty eradication, reducing inequality, and stimulating job creation. However, to achieve this, banks must first solve their problem of interoperability. Banks must create a mobile payments ecosystem connecting all their customers, regardless of with whom they bank (Mehrotra & Yetman, 2015).
Developing countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, are still unbanked − over 40% of the households and a good number of women and impoverished adults have no formal bank accounts (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2015). Researchers Demirguc-Kunt et al. (2015) further indicate that banking in many developing countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, are still challenged by numerous factors ranging from lack of infrastructure to insufficient financial education. This is in addition to low income levels, financial illiteracy, small size of national markets, political instability, and weak judicial systems. Concomitantly, many banks in those countries are still relying on traditional banking models of branch networks (Allen et al., 2014; Aluko & Ajayi, 2017).