Mobile money adoption and response to idiosyncratic shocks: Empirics from five selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 120728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Koomson ◽  
Chei Bukari ◽  
Renato A Villano

Subject Prospects for Africa's economies to end-2016. Significance The IMF's most recent forecast of 3% GDP growth for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2016 represents a significant cut from the 4.25% it expected in October 2015. This is a consequence of sharp slowdowns in the region's two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, droughts in previously buoyant economies (notably in eastern and southern Africa), a variety of idiosyncratic shocks and a prolonged commodity price downturn.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Eilu ◽  
Theresa Odur Auma

One of the most important drivers for sustainable economic growth and development is financial inclusion. This explains why financial exclusion is a leading cause of extreme poverty and a key barrier to growth. The level of financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa still remains low. However, there is evidence that mobile money technology, taking advantage of the high level of mobile phone penetration in the region, has been seen to drive financial inclusion. However, very few studies have been conducted in the region to particularly establish the extent mobile money service usage has leveraged financial inclusion. In this study, we investigate the extent to which three most common mobile money services namely, sending money, receiving money and bill payment have leveraged financial inclusion in a Sub-Saharan African country like Uganda. Our study reveals that the most widely used mobile money service in this rural area was for receiving money. This has greatly enhanced financial inclusion by facilitating both domestic and international remittance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 724-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca I Kiconco ◽  
Gerrit Rooks ◽  
Giacomo Solano ◽  
Uwe Matzat

Adoption rates of mobile financial services within sub-Saharan Africa still appear to be below par. The 2016 Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association report shows that over 60 per cent of the adult population in sub- Saharan Africa do not use mobile financial services. We investigate how cognitive resources, namely, mobile phone skills and English literacy, influence the use of mobile financial services. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 208 individuals from an urban location in Central Uganda. We measure actual mobile phone skill using a newly developed scale. The results show that a marginal increase in mobile phone skills has a strong effect on the odds of adopting mobile money, but a less strong effect on the extent to which the functionalities of the mobile money application are used. On the other hand, English literacy has no influence on both adoption and the magnitude of services individuals use.


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