Determinants of Financial Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Countries from 1999 to 2024

Globally, financial inclusion is regarded as being crucial for balancing an economy's financial system. However, despite the significance of financial inclusion, it still needs to be clarified to what extent it is practiced in forty-five Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1999 to 2024. The rationale of the study empirically investigated the determinants of financial inclusion in forty-five Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1999 to 2024 in which cover three distinct periods but examined as a whole from 1999 to 2019 which is the pre-COVID, 2020–2022 is the COVID period, and the post-COVID period from 2023 onward for easy policy formulation for SSA countries. The study was anchored on main three research objectives, firstly to examined the factors influencing financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in these three distinct periods; secondly, discussed the roles of digital financial services usage in enhancing financial inclusion in SSA countries before, during and after the pandemic and lastly, present the policy implications of the result of these factors in enhancing financial inclusion in the post-COVID era in SSA. The study used Panel Least Squares (PLS) technique in the data analysis. The result revealed that economic growth (GRO), islamic banking (ISMAIC), money supply (MSS), internet users (USERS), credit availability (CREDIT) positively and Significantly enhance financial inclusion with a coefficient 0.001298, 4.926809, 1.08E-06, 0.459388, 0.657431 with a significant p-values of 0.0008, 0.0023, 0.0000,0.0000, 0.000 respectively. On the flip side, internet servers (SERVER) has a negative with significant coefficient value of 4.63E-06 with a p-value of 0.000. Though, inflation (INFLATION) and interest rate (INTEREST) have a negative coefficient values of -0.02853 and -0.08317 but has insignificant p-value impact of 0.2841 and 0.2501 respectively. The result indicates that many of the variables have a significant impact on financial inclusion. This is shown from the probabilities of the t statistics of each of the independent variables in the estimated model, which are significant at 5% level. The policy implications of these result include the following: firstly, SSA governments should promote economic growth through investment in productive sectors, infrastructure development, and job creation programs to indirectly improve financial inclusion. Secondly, SSA countries policymakers should maintain price stability through sound monetary and fiscal policies to ensure inflation does not hinder access to financial services. Thirdly, SSA countries governments and central banks should promote lower interest rates and enhance credit accessibility, especially for marginalized groups, through subsidized loans and targeted credit schemes. Fourthly, policymakers should support the expansion of islamic finance by improving regulatory frameworks and increasing awareness about Sharia-compliant financial products.