Financing Innovative Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Payment Systems

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.200328.038How to use a DOI?

Keywords

economic growth, sub-Sahara Africa, electronic payments, mobile money, innovation, financial inclusion, GDP per capita

Abstract

Electronic payments like mobile money services have been associated with unprecedented access to financial services in economies, where a large section of the population was underbanked or unbanked due to either lack of bank branches or their proximity. However, the continuous development of electronic payment systems, especially mobile payment in sub-Saharan Africa has brought about a rise in volume of cashless transactions, thereby reducing the use of cash for payment. This, therefore, promotes financial inclusion among the most vulnerable as it offers those without access to the formal banking system a safe and efficient payment alternative to cash. Also, electronic payment usage is also seen to have enormous benefits to governments as it could potentially help collect more tax revenue by providing a clear electronic trail and transparent transactions that can readily be taxed. This study investigates how mobile money services influence innovative economic growth. A linear regression analysis was conducted on sub-Saharan African data for period 2011-2018 and the study reveals that mobile services and payments system have significant positive effects on economic growth, hence innovative development in the region. The study concludes that mobile payment service or system is critical aspect of financial intermediation in sub-Saharan Africa as it offers them means through resources from both the banked, underbanked and unbanked populations could be attracted into the formal financial system, thus capable of facilitating innovative economic growth in the region.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Alhassan Tijani Forgor
AU  - Kouadio Ahou Julie
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/04/01
TI  - Financing Innovative Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Payment Systems
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Arts, Humanity and Economics, Management (ICAHEM 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 192
EP  - 198
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200328.038
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.200328.038
ID  - Forgor2020
ER  -