Women and youth in developing countries remain unserved or underserved by formal financial services. The rise of digital financial services (DFS), including mobile money, provides a promise to accelerate financial and economic inclusion to these population segments. As a result, both academic researchers and policy makers are increasingly interested in understanding the role of gender and age in the use of DFS across use cases. To nuance this, the current study analyses data from a sample of 3000 respondents collected during the second quarter of 2022 from the ten provinces of Zimbabwe. Results from multivariate logit models, controlling for some socio-economic factors, show that in Zimbabwe, gender is not a significant predictor of receiving income through digital means, making payments for goods and services digitally, or for the frequency of DFS use. On the other hand, youth lag in the use of DFS, especially for making payments for goods and services, and in the frequency of use. Besides the findings on gender and age, the study reveals that the level of education, the source of income, locality, and the level of income are important determinants of how individuals use DFS in Zimbabwe.

Expanding digital financial services (DFS) such as mobile money has become a key policy intervention for many developing and emerging countries as they seek to fast-track financial and economic inclusion. To date, adults in these markets have had more mobile money accounts than traditional bank accounts. Numerous studies have used binary approaches to understand the factors explaining DFS adoption. However, there is a dearth of studies, that investigate the time to DFS adoption and factors that predict time to adoption. To close this gap, this study used a time-to-event analysis approach to estimate the time to DFS adoption and investigate the factors that explain the variation in time to adoption. Using a sample of 1800 survey respondents from Zimbabwe, the study found that it took 4.4 and 8.5 years, respectively, for urban and rural residents to adopt DFS. Overall, the findings show that individuals who are significantly more likely to adopt DFS faster are those residing in urban areas, near mobile money agents, banked, with high levels of education and financial literacy, middle-aged, belonging to social groups, and self-employed. In addition, an expansionary macroeconomic environment was associated with greater DFS adoption intensities. The findings also show that gender and income level do not predict the time to DFS adoption in the studied market. This study provides policy and practitioner recommendations for possible actions to accelerate the adoption of DFS.

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are a prominent financial inclusion initiative in many developing countries. In Zimbabwe, however, less is known about microfinance borrowers, determinants of loan utilisation and borrowers’ repayment behaviour. Demonstrating that MFIs serve those who are economically marginalised and traditionally excluded from the formal financial system is useful in a country where most of the economic activities are in the informal sector. This study investigated the factors associated with the utilisation of microfinance loans and delinquency among microfinance borrowers using the Poisson, logit and the zero-truncated Poisson regression models on 6165 unique borrowers in Zimbabwe. The study findings revealed that microfinance loans were significantly more likely to be accessed by low-income individuals, who took small loans with relatively high instalments. Women were less likely to access microfinance loans, and reliable borrowers were more likely to access repeat loans. The level of income, number of previous loans and loan terms explained the delinquency among borrowers. Largely, the findings suggest that microfinance in Zimbabwe serves the needs of the low-income group. However, policies that seek to improve access to credit for women and youth remain a priority.

Digital financial services and more importantly, mobile money, have become an important financial innovation to advance financial inclusion in developing and emerging economies. While digital financial services have improved the lives of many Kenyans, to the growing betting segment of the Kenyan population, these innovations have also brought great convenience to betting. The innovations have allowed easy access to digital credit which can be used for betting. Despite betting or gambling being a widely studied area, particularly in developed countries, little is known about its interaction with financial innovations such as digital financial services in developing and emerging economies. Using data from a 2017 digital credit survey in Kenya, this study investigates if bettors are more likely than non-bettors to be financially distressed or engage in welfare-undermining coping strategies and potentially experience inferior welfare outcomes. The study uses a representative sample of 1040 digital borrowers, of which 304 were digital bettors. Using multivariate logistic regressions, the study found that, after controlling for socio-economic and demographic factors, bettors are significantly more likely than non-bettors to be financially distressed, engage in welfare undermining coping strategies, and have inferior welfare outcomes.