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Analysis of institutional authors

Marco, RocioCorresponding Author

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April 28, 2025
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Formal financial inclusion and digital mobile money adoption in sub-Saharan Africa: do bank concentration and competition matter?

Publicated to: Applied Economics. - 2025-02-06 (), DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2025.2453756

Authors:

Marco, R; Perez-Saiz, H
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Affiliations

Int Monetary Fund, 700 19th St,NW, Washington, DC 20431 USA - Author
Univ Autonoma Madrid, Av Francisco Tomas & Valiente 5, Madrid 28049, Spain - Author

Abstract

It is widely accepted that financial inclusion brings significant benefits to individuals, and thereby enhances the economic development of countries. This article examines the role of bank concentration and competition on access to financial services in sub-Saharan Africa through two competing channels, the efficiency channel versus the rent-seeking channel. We distinguish between formal financial services and the emerging digital mobile money technologies. The low level of banking competition and the striking expansion of mobile money in sub-Saharan Africa provide incentives to study and compare both phenomena. Using various competition indicators, we find that bank competition facilitates both banking and mobile financial inclusion. Moreover, bank concentration favours the adoption of digital mobile money. The results suggest that digital mobile money plays a complementary role by increasing mobile financial inclusion in countries that lack financial depth. Furthermore, we find that individuals face the same demographic barriers to both formal and mobile financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa: adults who are female, younger, less educated, and poorer are more likely to be financially excluded. We conclude that promoting bank competition should be a key component of the inclusive growth policy agenda of sub-Saharan African countries.
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Keywords

AccessBank competitionBank concentrationDigital mobile moneyF63Financial inclusionG21O16O5ServiceSub-saharan africa

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal APPLIED ECONOMICS due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 202/620, thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Economics. Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q2 para la agencia Scopus (SJR) en la categoría Economics and Econometrics.

Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.

Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2026-04-05:

  • WoS: 1
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-05:

  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 17 (PlumX).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (MARCO CRESPO, ROCIO) .

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been MARCO CRESPO, ROCIO.

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