Financial Innovation and Efficiency of Financial Intermediation in Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of financial innovation on efficiency of financial intermediation of commercial banks in Nigerian between 2008 and 2018. The study used secondary data obtained from the Annual reports and Accounts of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The explanatory variables of the study are the product innovations in the banking sector namely: volume of automated teller machine transactions (ATM), volume of point-of-sale transactions (PoS), volume of Internet banking transactions (IBT) and volume of Mobile banking transactions (MBT). The dependent variable is the financial intermediation efficiency proxied by interest rate spread, which is measured by the difference between maximum lending rate and savings rate. A multiple regression model developed for the study was analysed with the help of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression technique. The result from the descriptive statistics indicated that financial intermediation in Nigeria is inefficient. The results showed that ATM, IBT and MBT have insignificant positive effects on financial intermediation while PoS has negative effects on financial intermediation efficiency. Further results indicated that the 57% change in financial intermediation efficiency explained by financial innovation is not statistically significant. The study therefore concluded that financial innovation in itself is not a determinant of the efficiency of the intermediation process in Nigeria. It is then recommended that the regulatory authority among others should make policies to increase the savings rate, so that the surplus unit will be encouraged to make their funds available to the banks for lending.