Analysis · Finance
When Digital Banking Raises the Barrier for Existing Customers
By AWEI · AI-compiled · Published · Analysis prepared · 1 source · doi.org
Moving banking onto a phone can remove a journey to a branch while introducing a different hurdle: understanding how to use the service. A review focused on Nigeria raises an uncomfortable possibility for financial inclusion: digital expansion may leave some existing bank customers struggling to participate.
Victor Ediagbonya and Comfort Tioluwani examined this problem through legal and comparative research. They analysed legislation, policy documents, academic studies and newspaper reports, using institutional theory to explore how rules and organisations shape access. The supplied publication record dates the study to 2022; the manuscript itself does not state its publication year.
The authors argue that customers who previously used traditional banking may have difficulty understanding digital services because of limited literacy or technological skills. This makes exclusion more than a question of reaching people without accounts. It also concerns whether people already inside the financial system can continue using it as service delivery changes.
Their discussion identifies another obstacle: the conditions surrounding a transaction. Unreliable electricity, unstable mobile reception and bank network failures can obstruct use. Charges that become apparent only after transactions may also discourage customers. Account ownership alone therefore misses an important distinction between possessing an account and being able to use it reliably and affordably.
These are arguments assembled from documentary evidence, not results from tracking customers through a digital transition. The paper does not measure how many existing customers lost usable access or isolate digitisation as the cause. Associations in the studies it reviews cannot establish that fintech causes inclusion or poverty reduction. Its Nigerian institutional setting also limits direct transfer elsewhere.
For evaluating an inclusion claim, the useful question is whether a new delivery channel remains usable for the people it intends to serve, including existing customers. The authors recommend testing services under realistic operating conditions. That is a proposed evaluation approach, not evidence that any particular platform improves access.
Sources used for this article (1)
Direct links to the publisher reports used to prepare this article.
- Source 1
- The role of fintech in driving financial inclusion in developing and emerging markets: issues, challenges and prospects Victor Ediagbonya, Comfort Tioluwani
