THE ROLE OF MICRO FINANCE BANKS IN PROMOTING FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the impact of micro finance banks on financial inclusion in Nigeria using time series data from 1992 to 2020. Using the bound test and the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model, the study was set to examine the impact of microfinance banks lending on financial inclusion in Nigeria, and to examine the impact of microfinance banks investment on financial inclusion in Nigeria. The findings indicated that microfinance banks loans and advances have a significant impact on financial inclusion in Nigeria. Furthermore the results showed that microfinance banks investments have a significant impact on financial inclusion in Nigeria. The study also found that availability of micro banking facilities and strong branch network also impact on financial inclusion in Nigeria. The study recommends that microfinance institutions should do more of group lending, individual lending, village banking and saving mobilization in order to enhance financial inclusions in microfinance banking in Nigeria.