Digital financial access as a moderator in the financial capability–financial inclusion nexus: Evidence from informal women traders in Zambia

Abstract

While financial capability and empowerment are established drivers of financial inclusion, the contextual conditions under which these relationships hold or are amplified remain understudied in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the moderating role of digital financial access in the relationships between financial capability, financial empowerment, financial literacy, and financial inclusion among 273 women traders in Lusaka's informal markets, Zambia, selected using stratified random sampling from a target population of 4,028 registered women traders across three major Lusaka markets. Anchored on the Technology Acceptance Model, Sherraden's Financial Capability Framework, and the Inclusive Financial Wellbeing Empowerment Model, a post-positivist moderation analysis was conducted using structural equation modelling with mean-centred interaction terms in AMOS 25, with 2,000-iteration bias-corrected bootstrapping. Results reveal that digital financial access significantly moderates the financial capability - financial inclusion relationship (β = 0.206, p < .01), amplifying the positive effect of capability on inclusion. However, digital financial access did not significantly moderate the financial empowerment–financial inclusion relationship (β = −0.033, p = .564) nor the financial literacy–financial inclusion relationship (β = 0.038, p = .514). This selective moderation finding - supported by all three of the theoretical frameworks employed - indicates that digital financial access serves as an enabling platform specifically for capability-translated inclusion, confirming that practical financial skills are necessary for digital platform utilisation and that empowerment operates through psychological channels that are largely independent of digital infrastructure availability. The study is the concluding paper in a three-paper series that collectively establishes the golden thread - financial literacy → capability/empowerment → inclusion - with digital financial access as the institutional amplifier of the capability link. The findings advance evidence-based recommendations for sequencing digital infrastructure investment alongside capability-building programmes in Zambia's National Financial Inclusion Strategy II (2024–2028) implementation.