A Comparative Analysis of Financial Inclusion Between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

Many governments particularly in the developing world have acknowledged the importance of financial inclusion over the past twenty years. Arguably, the African continent seems to have been left behind. However, the continent has begun to make up for the lost ground, with statistics indicating that over three-quarters of Africans own a mobile phone with an internet connection used for mobile payments and e-commerce, among other things. This study seeks to compare the levels of financial inclusion between North and Sub-Saharan African countries. The study used the 2021 Global Financial Index data collected by the World Bank for its report on financial inclusion across the globe. Binary Logistic Regression that incorporated Chi-Square tests and Cross-Tabulations was used to analyse data. The results show that overall, Sub-Saharan Africa is more financially included, favoured by a much higher percentage of mobile money accounts. The study implies that North African countries should embrace the cheap to maintain mobile money to raise the level of their populations’ financial inclusion. The originality of this study is that it compares financial inclusion between two regions that are not often compared since North Africa is habitually linked to the Middle East and left out of many research topics on Africa despite being physically present on the continent.