Financial Innovations and Financial Inclusion among Small Scale Coffee Farmers in Kiambu County, Kenya

Despite the strong presence of various
financial technologies in remote areas, most inhabitants
in these areas remain financially excluded. In Kenya,
majority of the small-scale farmers are the aged people
and presumed to be slow in adoption of technology. For
this reason, financially it is not clear to what extent
financial innovations have improved financial inclusion
among the farmers. The objective of the study was to
establish the innovations within mobile banking on how
they influence financial inclusion among small scale
coffee farmers in Kenya with a scope of Kiambu County
coffee farmers. The study was informed by financial
intermediation theory and technology acceptance theory
descriptive research design was adopted as it is suitable
for providing a comprehensive examination of the
situation and give a report of diversified features from

the analysis. The target population comprised of small-
scale coffee farmers situated in Kiambu County. This

study was targeting the top 10 coffee co-operatives
societies with a target population of 29,455. Using the
Cochran formula, a sample size of 395 five was selected.
Primary data was collected by use of questionnaires. The
data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics to
determine the mean and standard deviation. Pearson
correlation and regression was conducted to determine
the relationship between the variables. The regression
results showed that mobile banking have a statically
significant effect on financial inclusion among small scale
farmers. The study concluded that innovations in mobile
banking are very important in enhancing the rate of
financial inclusion in the country. Therefore the study
recommends that various stakeholders including
financial institutions to consider putting more
infrastructure and innovation in mobile banking to
ensure financial inclusion among small scale farmers in
Kenya.