Emergence of Mobile Financial Services in Ghana: Concerns for Use among Informal Sector Women Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Mobile financial services (MFS) have emerged in recent years as an indispensable tool to promote financial inclusion in emerging economies like Ghana. This article investigated the factors affecting MFS use among 300 women entrepreneurs in the informal sector in Ghana, using multinomial logit model. Knowledge of MFS, trust of services provided, nearness to agents and privacy of information are more likely to drive MFS use. In addition to embarking on aggressive radio and television advertisement, service operators should deploy more agents and invest in reliable infrastructure to build users’ trust to increase MFS use.

JEL Classification: D12, G20

Keywords

Mobile financial services entrepreneur informal Ghana

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