EFFECT OF FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN NIGERIA: AUTOREGRESSIVE DISTRIBUTED LAG APPROACH

Abstract

This study explores the effect of financial technology on financial inclusion in Nigeria proposing a model of financial inclusion using FinTech dimensions of the volume of automated teller machine transactions, the volume of point-of-sales transactions, and the volume of mobile banking transactions as predictors and using data spanning 2009-2019. The study implemented the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach to evaluate the effect of financial technology on financial inclusion in Nigeria. The findings suggested that the volume of automated teller machine transactions significantly influences the number of persons financially included in Nigeria both in the long-run and short-run at 10% level of significance. Also, the study found that the volume of point-of-sales and mobile banking transactions are not significant in the long-run and short-run. Furthermore, the study established the existence of a long-run co-integration relationship between financial technology and financial inclusion. This finding implies that the usage of electronic platforms to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria has achieved minimal success.