Mobile banking in Sub-Saharan Africa: setting the way towards financial development

Rouse, Marybeth and Verhoef, y Grietjie (2017): Mobile banking in Sub-Saharan Africa: setting the way towards financial development.

Abstract

The importance of financial development for long-term economic growth has been recognised by policy-makers arounds the world. Fast growing economies with limited formal banking services experience greater financial exclusion. The explosion in mobile phone technology in Africa saw the rapid development of mobile banking. Many countries in Africa have poor retail banking network infrastructure especially in the rural areas. Mobile communication networks introduced innovative products to extend mobile banking into remote rural locations. The development of mobile banking has contributed towards enhanced financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In less than ten years, Kenya has become the leading country in SSA for mobile banking penetration and mobile banking has been instrumental in providing access to financial services to the previously unbanked. This article surveys the state of economic development in Africa as contextualisation of subsequent trends in banking developments in SSA.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: financial development, financial inclusion, mobile technology, retail banking, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G21 - Banks ; Depository Institutions ; Micro Finance Institutions ; Mortgages; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies

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