This dissertation examines the long-term effects of state interventions to address financial exclusion and explores the use of technology as a means of addressing this phenomenon. The first chapter traces the origins of financial inclusion and explores the role of the state in assisting ‘unbanked’ individuals. This includes documenting the long-term nature of technological innovations that transformed retail finance and which have subsequently been used to address financial exclusion. The case of the world-recognised mobile payment service, M-Pesa, credited with transforming access to financial services in Africa, adds to the literature on the state as an entrepreneur. The empirical results suggest that the state was actively involved in the development and deployment of applications of information and communication technologies that led to M-Pesa, a service which extends access to retail financial markets to the previously unbanked.
The second chapter uses a large data set of repeat household surveys undertaken over a ten-year period in South Africa to empirically assess the individual determinants of financial inclusion. The econometric findings suggest that, for the case of South Africa between 2005 and 2014, the most significant factors associated with financial inclusion were income, education and age. This chapter also documents the significant impact of policy interventions on the long-term access to financial services in South Africa. The findings suggest that the likelihood of being banked increased over the period of the study.
There is growing interest in the potential for mobile banking technologies to reach the unbanked population in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region where large portions of the population have access to a mobile phone but remain outside of the financial system. However, the factors driving mobile banking adoption remain unclear. The third chapter examines the influence of socio-demographic and cultural factors over time, on the intention to use mobile banking. The findings of this chapter suggest that income, education and institutional trust have a significantly positive effect on the behavioural intention to adopt mobile banking. The findings of this dissertation suggest that the state played an active role, both in advancing financial inclusion and in the use of technology to provide financial services to the unbanked population.