Uganda has been ranked 3rd in a survey on financial and digital inclusion by a US-based public institution, helped by the wide adoption of mobile money in the local economy.
Brookings Institution’s Centre for Technology Innovation, a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC, in its latest report put Uganda 3rd of its Financial and Digital Inclusion Program (FDIP) scorecard in a survey of 26 countries across the world.
The 2017 report assesses these countries’ financial inclusion ecosystems based on four dimensions of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of selected traditional and digital financial services.
Uganda’s overall score was put at 78% helped by mobile money adaption at 78% and good regulatory environment at 94%. The country’s commitment to digital and financial inclusion was put at 100% while adoption (to formal financial institution account penetration among lower-income adults, formal financial institution account penetration among women, borrowing from a financial institution, saving at a financial institution, debit card use, percentage of adults utilizing online bill payments and purchases etc) stands at 58%.
“For the third year in a row, Kenya ranked at the top of the FDIP scorecard, driven by its robust commitment to advancing financial inclusion, widespread adoption of mobile money services among traditionally underserved groups, an increasingly broad range of mobile money services (including insurance and loan products), and an enabling regulatory environment for digital financial services,” the report stated.
“In addition to Kenya, the other top-scoring countries were distributed across Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa: Brazil and Mexico tied for second place, and Colombia, South Africa, and Uganda tied for third.”
The report was authored Robin Lewis, Associate Fellow – Governance Studies, Centre for Technology Innovation and John Villasenor, Nonresident Senior Fellow – Governance Studies, Centre for Technology Innovation.
