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The proliferation of mobile money services in Uganda since 2009 has transformed the financial landscape, though limited empirical research has examined their contribution to economic growth. This study investigated the impact of mobile money usage on economic growth in Uganda, focusing on transaction efficiency, financial inclusion, employment generation, and savings mobilization. Grounded in pragmatism as the guiding research philosophy, the study employed a survey, descriptive, and correlational designs across four selected districts. The target sample comprised 385 respondents, with 336 (87.3%) successfully reached, including mobile money agents, agent bankers, commercial bank staff, telecom company representatives, fintech entrepreneurs, regulators, and end-users selected through simple random, purposive, and convenience sampling. Data collection utilized structured questionnaires, key informant interviews, and documentary review of reports from the Bank of Uganda, Uganda Bureau of Statistics, and Uganda Communications Commission. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS version 30 through descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation, while qualitative data underwent thematic analysis. Results revealed that mobile money usage significantly contributes to economic growth through multiple channels: 83.6% of respondents used mobile money as their primary digital finance platform, with 92.0% engaging in daily transactions. The findings showed that a unit change in mobile money usage would result in a 0.339 change in economic growth. The study concludes that mobile money significantly drives Uganda’s economic growth by enhancing financial inclusion, transactional efficiency, remittance flows, and employment generation with a regression model: Economic Growth = 3.105 + 0.339 (Mobile Money Usage. Recommendations include expanding digital infrastructure, strengthening consumer protection against fraud, integrating mobile money with formal taxation systems, and promoting digital financial literacy programs to maximize mobile money’s contribution to Uganda’s economic growth.
Kiberu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.