ABSTRACT

Financial inclusion continues to be a major issue of concern in the developing countries because of high numbers of persons without access to formal and regulated banking services. The government Vision 2030 objective on budgetary administrations was to make a lively and internationally satisfactory monetary area that would advance elevated amounts of funds and financing for the nation's venture needs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of mobile transfer of funds, mobile payment for goods and services, bank account management over the mobile platform and mobile credit facilitation on financial inclusion in Kenya. The study was anchored on technology acceptance theory, diffusion of innovation theory and theory of financial intermediation. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population was the number of mobile money users across both banked and non-banked population in Nairobi City County while the respondents were 336 management level staff among the 16 selected commercial banks in Nairobi County. The study relied on primary data collected by use of structured questionnaires. The collected data was coded into SPSS for analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study were that all the variables were highly correlated with financial inclusion. Findings of the study established that mobile transfer of funds, mobile payment for goods, mobile account management and mobile credit facilitation significantly influenced financial inclusion on economy. The study concludes that mobile banking has improved the level of access to financial services to persons without formal access to commercial banks and the amount of money transferred through mobile phones has increased in commercial banks. The outreach of the banks has expanded because of provision of pay bill services and many customers were settling their bills through pay bill numbers. Minimal maintenance charges in mobile phone-based accounts attracted more customers and reduced fees charged on mobile funds transfer transactions attracted more customers to the bank. Banks customers ought to request the banks to link their account with mobile money payment services, introduction of pay bill services ought to reduce customer queues, increase the cash reserve ratios of the bank and increase the cash deposit ratios. Flexibility in the amount of credit extended through mobile phones ought to attract more customers and flexibility in repayment of mobile phone-based loans ought to attract more customers.