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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the real estate investment performance portfolio decision-making of the insurance firms by the National Housing Fund (NHF) Act in reducing the housing deficit in Nigeria. The insurance companies' gross premium, real estate investment and return on investment trends for the period 2014–2019 were evaluated, to determine the extent of their investment in real estate in Nigeria, this ought to have reduced the shortfall in housing.

Both primary and secondary sources were used. Cronbach’s alpha was used for testing the reliability. The Friedman mean rank with Chi-square was used for different types of real estate investment properties and for reasons for investing in real estate by insurance companies in Nigeria. The test for normality was conducted using the Shapiro–Wilk and Spearman correlation for the significance. The percentage and the data envelopment analysis frontier model were used for measuring performance and efficiency.

The results showed that the majority of real estate investments made by insurance companies were in commercial and land buying and reselling and that their performance was below average. However, their motivation for investing is not toward the NHF Act but rather for diversification and increasing their capital.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies in Nigeria that looked at how well insurance firms have performed investing in real estate as required by the NHF Act. However, the new Act, the National Housing Fund (Establishment) Act of 2018 which was put on hold due to flaws, affected data availability beyond 2019.

This paper studies the effect of digital financial inclusion in banking on the poor and deprived populations of African emerging economies from 1997 to 2023.

Automated teller machines, mobile payments and mobile money transactions measure digital financial inclusion. Household consumption expenditure proxies poverty reduction. The autoregressive distributed lag analyzes the study.

The results indicate that automated teller machines, mobile money transactions and financial deepening positively affect poverty reduction, while mobile payments negatively affect poverty reduction. Digital financial inclusion decreases poverty via increased investment and empowerment.

Digital financial products and services should be expanded to all population segments in the economies. The governments should improve the quality and quantity of institutions that guarantee the operation of digital financial activities through the enforcement of law and order. The quality and quantity of mobile money transactions and financial deepening should be increased. The costs and charges involved in using automated teller machines and mobile payments should be regulated to relieve the burden on the population. The government should facilitate access to digital financial services via power supply, transport and telecommunication networks. Banks and telecommunications service providers should improve the payment system network to ensure cost-effective, convenient and secure financial service delivery. The digital infrastructure and financial services markets should be enhanced to fully capture the gains of financial inclusion and reduce poverty.

A literature review provides studies with conflicting findings on the effect of digital financial inclusion on poverty reduction. This study supports that digital financial inclusion decreases poverty.

The purpose of this study is to measure financial inclusion (FI) and to examine the role of digital financial literacy (DFL) and its components, and various socio-demographics in relation to FI. In addition, the mediating effect of digital financial attitudes (DFA) on the relationship between digital financial knowledge (DFK) and digital financial behaviour (DFB), as well mediating effect of DFA and DFB on the relationship between DFK and FI, is being explored.

Using a cross-sectional research design, we utilize a dataset from the survey of adults’ financial literacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, collected from the representative sample of 1,096 adults in 2022. The main methodology relies on logistic and ordinal logistic regression analyses and PROCESS for mediation analyses.

The findings suggest that the effect of DFK on DFB is partially mediated by DFA. In addition, the effect of DFK on FI is fully mediated through three pathways: DFA, DFB, and DFA and DFB in serial mediation. Age, education, employment status and residence are significantly related to FI. Internet access is significant only for FI scores but not for adults’ banking status. Although women are almost twice as unbanked as men, we find no gender-based differences in financial product holdings, FI or adults’ banking status.

There is a need to enhance DFK and DFA to enable adults to use financial products. Financial institutions could use our results in designing and promoting their services.

Policy implications are seen in the need for developing national strategies for financial education, with an emphasis on strengthening DFL, especially DFK and DFA, which will enhance the formal FI of adults. Also, governments should work on expanding Internet access.

The results make a contribution to the theory of planned behaviour. They contribute to the limited empirical evidence of the mediating role of DFA in relationship to DFB, as well as the mediating role of DFA and DFB in relationship to FI.