The rapid adoption of mobile money transfer (MMT) in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is facilitating a nexus of inter-personal financial transfers which has hitherto been the least visible dimension of informal finance. At the same time, the success of capturing these flows into a formal...

While the scale of informal finance in many developing countries has long been known to be extensive, data at the national level and particularly in Africa has been scarce. Moreover, financial sector development policy has firmly shifted its attention away from informal finance and towards...

Policy emphasis has recently shifted to ‘Finance for All’ given evidence that financial sector development (FSD) contributes to growth but that the primary effects on poverty do not arise from pro-poor provision. This paper uses data from Financial Access Surveys carried out in 2006 in Kenya...

The rapid adoption of mobile money transfer (MMT) in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is facilitating a nexus of inter-personal financial transfers which has hitherto been the least visible dimension of informal finance. At the same time, the success of capturing these flows into a formal...

Financial inclusion policy has been ignited globally by the rise of money transfer services over mobile telecommunications platforms. Explanations for the success of the leading example in Kenya have focussed on conditions of supply side development and the demand for domestic urban to rural...