14th of November, 2022
"Most Kenyans have bank accounts that are empty; they have access to digital financial services; and they have access to mobile money loans."
This Conference will assist us in getting to the root of this problem."
Mr. Simon Gaitho, Head External, Fiscal and Financial Statistics, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, announced this during the opening ceremony of a four-day Financial inclusion conference held at the UoN Confucius Institute on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
The Central Bank of Kenya convened the conference in collaboration with KNBS, FSD, and the University of Nairobi's Department of Economics.
Prof. Robert Mudida, Director Research, CBK, emphasized the conference's timeliness, stating, "It's about time local researchers researched and consumed research solutions locally on Financial inclusion and #Finaccess." He lamented, "This is the culmination of a 9-month journey since we put out a call for papers and we only received 11 research papers from all over the country."
He urged industry, academia, and the private sector to collaborate closely, and for institutions to continue researching and exchanging research data with industry for local answers to local problems.
He finished by stating that universities have a vital role in policymaking.
The four documents provided were the only ones that came close to what the Central Bank released.
The winner of the conference paper presentations was Dr. Dickson Wandeda, Lecturer UoN, and Kefa Simiyu, Master's Student UoN, who presented on 'Explaining gambling behavior among Kenyan youth.'
'Financial health in Kenya, beyond financial inclusion,' presented Juneweenex Mbuthia, a UoN PhD student, 'Financial health and nexus with digital financial services: Deconstructing the gender gap,' presented Dr. Davis Bundi Ntwiga, Dept. of Mathematics, UoN, 'Utilization of mobile money services and financial inclusion in Kenya (evidence from 2021 finaccess survey data),' presented Florence Nelima Simi
Even with all of the Digital Financial Services available and accessible, it was evident from all of the papers presented that Kenyans have yet to experience #Inclusivefinance.
The FSD Kenya launched the FinAccess Household Survey County Perspective Report at the Conference, which culminated at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS).
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