Enhancing Inclusive Finance in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Collaborative Role of Economic Freedom and Innovative Facilities

Abstract

This paper gives insight into innovative facilities' role in the effect of economic freedom on inclusive finance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using data from 2008 to 2020. After using the generalized method of moment for the analysis, the study concluded that improving economic freedom promotes financial inclusion while expanding innovative facilities in SSA inhibits inclusive finance. The study also discovered that innovative facilities improve the impact of economic freedom on inclusive finance in SSA and subsequently diminish the effect of economic freedom on inclusive finance after certain thresholds (mobile usage 100.75, internet usage 34.1064, fixed broadband usage not applicable, telephone usage 13.3494, and innovative facility index 1.5619). Hence, policymakers are advised to increase freedom in SSA economies to boost financial inclusion by ensuring the bureaucracy for establishing financial institutions is minimized and institutions that ensure property rights and free will are instituted to encourage people to participate in financial services. When it comes to using innovative facilities to enhance freedom-induced inclusivity in finance, technical and financial knowledge should be enhanced in addition to lowering the cost of using innovative facilities to access financial services in order to eliminate the threshold levels at which innovative facilities reduce inclusive finance SSA.