Financial Technology, Financial Inclusion and Economic Growth in Selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) Countries

This study examined the effect of financial technology and financial inclusion on economic growth in selected sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The specific objectives of the study are to examine the effect of internet penetration and the influence of financial technology application on economic growth in selected SSA countries, while also examine the role of financial access, the extent financial usage impact and how financial quality impact on the economic growth in selected SSA countries. The method of analysis adopted in the study is the panel non-linear autoregressive distributed lags (PNARDL) approach which was chosen because it allows for the capture of the effect of potential asymmetries in the independent variables on the dependent variable. It therefore captures nonlinear dynamics that standard linear models might miss. With stratified sampling technique and the use of data filtering approach 29 countries were included in the study based on data availability, depth of the Fintec space and regionalization within the period 2014 to 2023. The study found that the internet penetration and financial technology significantly promotes economic growth in SSA countries. Similarly, financial access and financial quality were also found to positively promote economic growth while the reverse was the case for financial usage which was found to exhibit a negative relationship towards economic growth. In addition, the asymmetric effects of ICT infrastructure and Fintec are found to be much larger than the beneficial effects of their positive shocks with the coefficients of mobile banking (MBK) and POS agency positive but significant values of 0.185 and 0.002 respectively dwarfed by their respective coefficient of negative changes of -0.721 and -0.172. This result therefore calls for a combination of measures in addressing the digital deficits in SSA countries and also encouraging financial technology and inclusion while ensuring that digital services are stabilised and efficiently used over time to prevent costly disruptions.