The nature of financial inclusion in Lesotho: Challenges and main policy considerations to increase access to and use of quality financial services

Lira Peter Sekantsi
Additional contact information
Lira Peter Sekantsi: Department of Payments and Settlements, Central Bank of Lesotho, Lesotho

Journal of Digital Banking, 2019, vol. 3, issue 4, 330-345

Abstract: The scale of financial exclusion remains high, especially among low-income and disadvantaged people in rural and remote areas in Lesotho owing to the concentration of physical financial infrastructure in urban areas, high costs of bank accounts and other financial services, lack of proper documentation, lack of interoperability and lack of a proper financial consumer protection and dispute resolution framework. The deployment of mobile money provided a glimpse of hope, but it also faces significant challenges. Therefore, government authorities, financial regulators and policymakers are engaged in policy and regulatory initiatives aimed at increasing financial inclusion in Lesotho. These comprise the expansion of financial infrastructure beyond urban areas; promoting efficient account-to-account interoperability; and enactment and review of the legal and regulatory framework for payment, clearing and settlement systems, banking and non-bank financial institutions, insurance, pensions and other financial services and products. Other initiatives are the implementation of Lesotho Scaling Inclusion through Mobile Money (Lesotho SIMM) to address the challenges facing mobile money uptake and use in Lesotho and assessing the feasibility of introducing digital financial identity as a unique identifier in Lesotho. The government of Lesotho should also adopt digital payment methods (including mobile money) to increase financial inclusion in Lesotho.

Keywords: financial inclusion; mobile money; legal and regulatory framework; consumer protection; Lesotho (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E5 G2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/1383/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/1383/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jdb000:y:2019:v:3:i:4:p:330-345

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Digital Banking from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().