Finance and growth underpin the debate on the implication of financial literacy and financial inclusion for development among scholars. While financial inclusion and financial literacy are positioned as enablers of sustainable development, literature has failed to link the two with sustainable development, especially for rural agrarian dwellers in dire need of financial development attributes. Therefore, this study applied variance-based structural equation modelling to examine the implication of financial literacy and financial inclusion for the sustainable livelihood of rural agrarian settlers in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Global scales were adapted and validated before administering them to 283 farmers and subsistence businesses in the region. The results revealed that financial literacy positively and significantly influences financial inclusion (β = 0.452) and the attainment of sustainable livelihood (β = 0.444). Financial inclusion partially mediates the influence of financial literacy on sustainable livelihood (β = 0.253), as it directly explains the province's sustainable livelihood (β = 0.114). The study's implication informs structured intervention for improving financial literacy to assist the target group with access to requisite funding, which could support their economic activities for a decent living.

This study investigates the relationship between competition and the risk-taking attitude of banks. We test how this relationship manifests in the Sub-Saharan African(SSA) region’s commercial banks in light of the competition-fragility view, using the generalized methods of moments. We studied 440 commercial banks in 37 SSA countries over the period 2006–2015. The results provide evidence that supports a positive relationship between competition and banks’ overall risk as well as their credit risk but suggests that off-balance sheet risk reduces with competition. We, therefore, conclude that the propensity to undertake higher risk in a competitive banking environment largely accounts for fragility as argued in the competition-fragility view.

A major challenge to SME growth has been access to credit meanwhile literature exploring the effects of lending methodologies on credit access has paid little attention to how credit referencing information can influence the relationship. The study assessed the mediating influence of credit reference information on the interaction between bank lending methodologies and SMEs access to credit in Ghana. Ordinary least square regression analysis was used to analyse 1061 questionnaires collected from businesses in the Accra, Ghana. Results show that two lending methodologies exist both of which impact access to finance with the interaction of credit referencing information enhancing the explanatory power. We concluded that credit referencing plays a role in ensuring that lending methodologies for SMEs access to finance in Ghana is enriched to increase access to credit. The study has implications for policymakers to bring financial technology that ensures financial information can be easily captured from SMEs. This then enhances their creditworthiness for integration into the formal banking system to improve access to credit.

The study compares four independent estimation techniques, the panel ARDL, FMOLS, DOLS (non-distributional), and quantile regression (distributional), examining the comparative impacts of green finance and financial inclusion in twelve emerging economies of the world based on data from 2014 to 2023. The estimates were unanimously used to justify the undeniable influences of green finance and financial inclusion on sustainable development. The results from the non-distributional techniques revealed that green finance and financial inclusion significantly positively impacted sustainable development in emerging economies. The quantile regression results showed that financial inclusion was more beneficial to sustainable development than green finance, although it was around the middle of the distribution. The quantile regression output further proved that the relationship between sustainable development and green finance in emerging economies is weaker than that between financial inclusion. According to these findings, green financial inclusion holds the potential to advance the achievements of sustainable development in emerging economies.