FINTECH-DRIVEN PAYMENT SYSTEMS AND ACCESS TO FINANCIAL SERVICES IN NIGERIA

The study aimed at investigating the effect of FinTech-powered payment systems on financial services provision in Nigeria between the years 2000 and 2025 with particular emphasis on mobile banking, ATM transactions, and web-pays as the major digital banking systems. The need for conducting the study was prompted by Nigeria's continuous inadequacy in providing financial services to its populace where the existing financial inclusion ratio is only 64.1% against the set Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) objective of 98% by the year 2024. This project relied on the Technology Acceptance Model, Diffusion of Innovations theory, and Financial Intermediation theory. They used a time series method for research and got their secondary data from CBNSB and WDI databases. The main estimation method was ARDL (Bounds Test Approach). Before and after the main estimation, they ran some tests too - stuff like the Augmented Dickey Fuller unit root test, Breusch-Godfrey serial correlation LM test, Breusch Pagan-Godfrey heteroscedasticity test, and Ramsey RESET. Their bounds test showed that there's a cointegration relationship between variables in the long run. Over time, using ATMs had a strong, positive effect on financial inclusion, with a beta of 0.764 and p < 0.0000. Web payments also made a positive difference with a beta of 0.233 and p = 0.0006. Surprisingly, mobile banking turned out to have a negative impact, though. It had a beta of 0.178 and a p of 0.0072. So, it seems that while most technologies have increased financial inclusion, mobile banking actually decreased it, at least according to this study. This is due to the structural issues of digital illiteracy, cyber security threats, and poor infrastructure. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that even though digital banking has an impact on financial inclusion in Nigeria, targeted measures are necessary.