| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of agency banking on financial inclusion in Mukono Municipality. Specifically, the study evaluated the effect of geographical coverage on financial inclusion in Mukono Municipality, the effect of agent transaction volumes on financial inclusion in Mukono Municipality and the effect of number of banking agents engaged on financial inclusion in Mukono Municipality. The study used the agency theory to guide the conceptualization. Using a cross-sectional survey design, primary data was collected by the use of questionnaires and interview guides. A target population of 85 respondents who included bank agents, supervisors, managers and employees was considered and quantitative data was obtained from 60 respondents out of a sample of 70 respondents and the response rate was 85.71%. Simple random sampling was used to collect quantitative data while qualitative data was collected using purposive sampling method from a sample of 8 interviewees and a response rate of 100%. Prerequisite tests were carried out to meet parametric assumptions and these were; Shapiro Wilk tests for normality, scatter plots to check for linearity and multicollinearity tests that were gauged using zero order correlation matrix and Variance Inflation Factors. The study used descriptive statistics to describe the relevant aspects of the phenomenon, Pearson correlation was used to check the relationship among the study variables and finally when data was deemed fit, a multiple regression analysis was performed to address the study objectives. The findings of the study revealed that geographical coverage was a significant predictor of financial inclusion (Beta =0.503, p value =0.000). The number of banking agents engaged was also found to significantly predict financial inclusion (Beta =0.258, p value =0.010). The results of agent transaction volumes were found not to predict financial inclusion (Beta =0.184, p value =0.116). The study concluded that agency banking model is a success as regards to deepening financial inclusion and thus recommended that geographical coverage of agency banking as well as the number of banking agents engaged were found to affect financial inclusion thus efforts have to be made to increase the number of outlets providing bank agency services so as a greater geographical coverage is achieved. Future studies need to be conducted in other areas of Uganda and also increase the sample size to check the robustness of this study. | en_US |
