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West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 202512 June 2025CC-BY-4.0PDFID f1skm
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Chidi Okonkwo, Aisha Bello and Kwame Mensah (2025) Agent networks and the last mile of digital financial inclusion in Nigeria. West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 2025. https://quorumpress.org/papers/agent-networks-last-mile-f1skm

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Published in West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 2025. This article was peer reviewed before publication.

West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 2025Paper No. AGBBHK
Gulf of Guinea Business School
Full paper

Agent networks and the last mile of digital financial inclusion in Nigeria

Chidi Okonkwo1*, Aisha Bello1, Kwame Mensah2

1 Gulf of Guinea Business School, Lagos, Nigeria
2 Atlantic School of Computing, Accra, Ghana
* Corresponding author
Received 12 June 2025Published 12 June 2025CC-BY-4.0

Abstract

Mobile-money agents are the physical interface of digital finance, yet agent liquidity and reliability vary widely. Drawing on transaction logs from 1,200 agents and a household survey in three Nigerian states, we show that agent density explains more of the variation in active-account rates than smartphone ownership. Cash-out failures, driven by agent illiquidity, were the leading reason customers abandoned digital wallets. We propose liquidity-rebalancing incentives and measure their simulated effect on service reliability.

Keywords: Financial inclusion, Mobile money, Agent networks, Digital payments

Cite as: Chidi Okonkwo, Aisha Bello, & Kwame Mensah (2025). Agent networks and the last mile of digital financial inclusion in Nigeria. West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 2025. https://quorumpress.org/papers/agent-networks-last-mile-f1skm

© 2025 Okonkwo, Bello and Mensah. Open access under CC BY 4.0.

Introduction

Digital financial inclusion depends not only on technology adoption but on the reliability of the agent networks that convert cash to digital value and back.

Data and methods

We combined transaction logs from 1,200 agents with a household survey across three states, modelling active-account rates against agent density, liquidity, and device ownership.

Findings

Agent density was the dominant predictor of account activity. Cash-out failures from agent illiquidity were the main driver of wallet abandonment. Simulated liquidity-rebalancing incentives improved reliability substantially.

References

[1] GSMA, “State of the industry report on mobile money,” 2024.

Cite this paper

Chidi Okonkwo, Aisha Bello, Kwame Mensah. Agent networks and the last mile of digital financial inclusion in Nigeria. West Africa Fintech & Digital Economy Conference 2025, 2025. https://quorumpress.org/papers/agent-networks-last-mile-f1skm

Publication ID: f1skm