EFFECT OF MICROFINANCE BANKS ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN NIGERIA

This study examined how Nigerian microfinance banks affected financial inclusion between 1992 and 2025. Examining the impact of microloans and deposits on financial inclusion, as well as the impact of the number of microfinance bank branches on financial inclusion in Nigeria, are the particular goals of this study. This study used an ex post facto research design. The Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin provides secondary data for the period from 1992 to 2025. This contains data on credit to the private sector as a stand-in for financial inclusion, as well as data on bank loans, deposits, and branches as a stand-in for microfinance institutions. The research includes descriptive statistics, correlation matrices, stationarity, autoregressive distributed lag, and error correction models. The results of this study demonstrated a long-term association between Nigerian financial inclusion and microfinance institutions. The lower and upper critical limit values at 5% are superseded by the F-statistics value of 4.806025. According to the long-term results, financial inclusion in Nigeria is positively and significantly impacted by microfinance loans (β1 = 3.967371, p<0.05), microfinance deposits (β2 = 6.800869, p>0.05), and the number of microfinance bank branches (β3 = 5.630316, p<0.05). Based on the findings, the study concludes that microfinance institutions significantly and favorably impact financial inclusion in Nigeria