Smartphone Access, Internet Use, and Digital Financial Inclusion in Sub‐Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT This study examines the association between digital connectivity and digital financial inclusion in Sub‐Saharan Africa using Global Findex 2025 microdata for 33 countries. It extends the descriptive Global Findex evidence by distinguishing smartphone access from internet use and by separating digital payment use, mobile money accounts, and digitally used financial‐institution accounts. Propensity Score Matching (PSM), post‐match logit models, inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW), doubly robust estimation, and Rosenbaum bounds are used to address observable selection and assess sensitivity. In the matched samples, smartphone access is associated with 19.1%, 18.2%, and 14.0% higher probabilities of digital payment use, mobile money account ownership, and digitally used financial‐institution account ownership, respectively; the corresponding internet use probabilities are 17.5%, 16.0%, and 12.5%. Smartphone access remains independently significant within the internet‐matched sample. Persistent disadvantages among women, less‐educated adults, and rural residents indicate that connectivity alone does not eliminate structural barriers to digital financial inclusion.