Digital network interoperability as driver of digital financial inclusion sustainability in rural financial market in sub-Saharan Africa in the FinTech Age

Currently, the use of FINTECH like mobile money has increased access to and use of financial services, especially in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa where most adults remain financially excluded, yet more than 21 percent own mobile phones. This study establishes the interaction effect of network interoperability in the relationship between mobile money use and digital financial inclusion sustainability among unbanked women microentrepreneurs in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa with data collected from rural Uganda. Structural equation modeling with bootstrapping in Analysis of Moment Structures was used to test for the interaction effect. Cognizant to existence of interoperability between systems, the results revealed that network interoperability boost mobile money financial technology use and digital financial inclusion of unbanked women microentrepreneurs in rural areas by 10 percentage points. Network interope-rability facilitates account-to-account cross network transactions that increase savings, payments, withdrawals, and remittances through mobile phones among the unbanked rural women microentrepreneurs. This study offers direction to telecom regulators in sub-Saharan Africa to strengthened security to enhance digital functionality across different networks in the presence of growing cyber risks. The telecos should comply with international best practices and standard operating procedures to prevent persistent mobile money scams and other cyber threats.