The International Business and Finance journal published the new paper "Digital and Traditional Financial Inclusion: Trends and Drivers", which examines the drivers of traditional and digital financial inclusion, emphasizing the catalytic role of digital inclusion in propelling traditional financial inclusion.
The paper was co-authored by EMEA President Prof. Rym Ayadi, Professor at Bayes Business School, City University of London, EMEA Senior Researcher Yeganeh Forouheshfar, EMEA Research Fellows Dr. Sandra Challita, Associate Professor in Finance at Emlyon Business School and Dr Mais Sha’ban, Associate Professor of Banking and Finance at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, and Prof. Serena Sandri, Professor at the Business School of German Jordanian University, department of Logistics and Member of the EMEA Expert Panel.
The paper examines the drivers of traditional and digital financial inclusion, emphasizing the catalytic role of digital inclusion in propelling traditional financial inclusion. Utilizing global data from 2004 to 2020, the authors construct two multidimensional financial inclusion indices: digital and traditional, and observe time trends. Then they explore country-level determinants of traditional and digital financial inclusion with a special focus on banking system conditions. Finally, they investigate the role of digital financial inclusion in driving the traditional financial inclusion.
Results show a significant improvement in financial inclusion over the period studied. The top countries for digital financial inclusion are primarily African developing nations, while high-income European countries lead in traditional inclusion. In terms of determinants, the main findings reveal that banking system conditions, mobile penetration, and urbanization significantly impact the level of digital and traditional financial inclusion. Moreover, the paper demonstrate that digital financial inclusion paves the way towards traditional financial inclusion in the medium term.
The paper is available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0275531924003210
Research in International Business and Finance (RIBAF) seeks to consolidate its position as a premier scholarly vehicle of academic finance. The Journal publishes high quality, insightful, well-written papers that explore current and new issues in international finance.