Digital Financial Services
Beyond the simplest, most pervasive examples (e.g. M-Pesa), there is a general lack of awareness of digital financial products and services, and less potential for adoption.
Generally, there is little direct need or desire to use digital financial products and services. People feel as though they don’t have enough money warrant the exploration for and use of DFS, and they lack of understanding of what is available to accomplish their tasks. There is a sentiment that DFS wouldn’t serve them because they are meant for rich people.
- 1Specific questions on Digital Financial Services (DFS)
- 2How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
- 3Which digital financial services have you been using since the last visit?
- 4Did you have trouble using DFS? What did you learn about them? And what do you want to learn?
- 5How much do the respondents save and loan through these services?
Respondents grouped by location of Interview
Specific questions on Digital Financial Services (DFS)
Almost 177 people were asked about their social media use, internet use, digital literacy, confidence about creating things online, and their use of digital financial services.
This page deals specifically with the questions and answers about DFS. We concentrate on:
How often do people use these services?
What kinds of DFS do they use?
Did you have any trouble with DFS, and what would you want to learn?
How much do they save and loan through these services?
How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
As we can see in these distributions , more than 85% of the respondents use DFS sometimes, often, or very often.
There is a small difference between groups: 86.5% of the control group says to use DFS sometimes, often,or very often; while 89.5% of the treatment group says so.
The difference is larger between genders: 91.4% for men, and 84.5% for women.
DFS Q2. How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
Treatment - DFS Q2. How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
Men - DFS Q2. How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
Control - DFS Q2. How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
Women - DFS Q2. How often have you been using digital financial services, since the last visit?
Which digital financial services have you been using since the last visit?
Despite the perceived dominance of M-pesa, the digital financial service Okoa Jahazi is getting almost as many mentions when the respondents were asked which DFS they have been using.
We also see a slight difference in the Treatment and Control group here: there are 229 mentions of the services in the top 5 in the Treatment group, and only 192 mentions in the Control group.
Editors note: I'd love to do a proper distribution of the number of services mentioned per group here, but chose not to due to time constraints.
Treatment Group - DFS Q3. Which digital financial services have you been using since the last visit ?
Control Group - DFS Q3. Which digital financial services have you been using since the last visit ?
Did you have trouble using DFS? What did you learn about them? And what do you want to learn?
Treatment group: DFS Q6. What kind of trouble have you been having with DFS since the last visit?
Men: DFS Q6. What kind of trouble have you been having with DFS since the last visit?
Control group: DFS Q6. What kind of trouble have you been having with DFS since the last visit?
Women: DFS Q6. What kind of trouble have you been having with DFS since the last visit?
Digital financial services and their use bring up issues for about a third of the respondents, in both the treatment (30%) and the control group (34%), but more so in the latter. In total, 120 of the 177 respondents reported that they had no trouble using DFS since the last visit.
There is also a noticeable gender difference here: the percentage of men saying they had no trouble is 7% higher.
Editors note: We have applied some initial coding to the responses to question DFS Q6, grouping all responses that indicated no trouble experienced with DFS as "None".
Treatment group: DFS Q7. What would you like to learn about DFS since the last visit?
Control group: DFS Q7. What would you like to learn about DFS since the last visit?
When people are asked if they'd like to learn about DFS the majority of respondents in both groups indicated they wanted to learn. Still a sizeable portion (71 of the 177 respondents) indicated there was nothing they wanted to learn about digital financial services.
Editors note: We have applied some initial coding to the responses to question DFS Q7, grouping all responses that indicated no wish to learn about DFS as "Nothing".
DFS Q5. What did you learn about saving/spending in relation to DFS since the last visit?
DFS Q5. What did you learn about saving/spending in relation to DFS since the last visit?
When asked what people learned, we see that about 40% of the people in the Control group say that they didn't learn anything new. For the treatment group, this is only 35%.
How much do the respondents save and loan through these services?
On average, people in the Treatment group have a balance of 1250 Kenyan Shilling in any DFS (calculated by subtracting their reported loans from their reported savings). People in the Control group have a reported balance of 471 Kenyan Shilling.
Editors note: It would be great if we could move this to a seperate collection, so these graphs can be properly sorted.
Treatment - DFS Calculation: Total balance from DFS (excluding airtime)
Control - DFS Calculation: Total balance from DFS (excluding airtime)