Essays on financial inclusion in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa is known to be troubled by numerous persistent economic problems of inequality, poverty and high unemployment. The country is simultaneously praised for a well-developed financial sector that provides a sophisticated array of financial products. Financial inclusion plays an important role to eradicate poverty and boost economic prosperity, yet financial inclusion is an under-researched topic in South Africa. With the growing recognition of the role financial inclusion plays on the economy, considerable increase in empirical work that seeks to examine its relationship with economic development has also been seen. A rather abandoned area is the macroeconomic relations of FI, particularly due to the fact that, until recent, there was little to no macroeconomic data on FI. This study adopts a threefold approach in examining FI in South Africa.