Digital Financial Inclusion: COVID-19 Impacts and Opportunities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article raises an important problem of the development of digital banking services in the world. The following questions arise after reading the content of the study:

- how the typology of groups of countries by income level was carried out - which countries were included

- no change in dynamics for calculated indicators for countries

- no data on the level of development of general banking in the countries concerned

Despite these doubts, the article deserves publication

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This study intends to measure digital financial “inclusion” -understood as the usage level of digital financial instruments- in different countries around the world. And more interestingly, it analyses the effects of the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 restrictions on the level of such “inclusion”.

The construction of the index, while not particularly novel, is based on sound foundations, taking World Bank indexes of usage of different digital financial services as its main components. The discussion on the findings of the study -revealing a significant increase in the use of these services across the board during the COVID-19 period- is accurate and useful. In particular, it is very interesting to note the disparate behaviour of richer and poorer countries during that period.

While the increase in digital financial services during the COVID-19 period is a foregone conclusion, the main contribution of this paper is the timeliness in trying to measure the exact level of that increase.

Where I cannot agree -and I think it is not a minor point, even though it has an easy solution- is in calling “financial inclusion” to something that is merely an indicator of financial depth. You can call it financial penetration also if you prefer that term. But “inclusion” is defined by the accessibility and affordability of financial services to the different segments of the population, especially the most vulnerable ones; not just overall coverage. None of that is measured here. Moreover, to the extent that private sector wages are ranked higher than public sector wages and online purchases higher than utility payments, the constructed indicator seems to run counter to the measurement of inclusivity.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, this is a good research. The idea is very nice to me and aim of the article is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital financial inclusion (DFI) by constructing and calculating an integral index. Results regarding the level of DFI are discussed in the article from the point of view of COVID-19 impacts, both directly through influencing consumer behavior and decisions regarding digital financial services, and through influencing business entities, financial service providers and regulation of digital financial inclusion (DFI) based on Global Findex Database. But on the other hand, the paper requires minor adjustments on the following comments:

1. What is your specific contribution (Summary) of this study if it can be added at the end introduction section?

2. How are the impact of using proposed method enhance the result.

3. Following new references should be added in the paper where similar methodologies and discussion are applied and by studying and adding these will improve the quality of this paper:

1. Alfaifi, A. A., & Khan, S. G. (2022). Utilizing Data from Twitter to Explore the UX of “Madrasati” as a Saudi e-Learning Platform Compelled by the Pandemic. Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific Research, 39(3), 200-208. doi:10.51758/AGJSR-03-2021-0025
2. Khan, S. (2021). Visual Data Analysis and Simulation Prediction for COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia Using SEIR Prediction Model. International Journal of Online Biomedical Engineering, 17(8). doi:10.3991/ijoe.v17i08.20099

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Precisely, as you correctly quote from the World Bank, "inclusion" measures the proportion of people that have access to certain financial instruments. What you are measuring is different. Your indicator measures the proportion of financial operations that are now digital. I would call it an index of financial digitalization.

However, you seem intent on publishing the article the way it is. And I will not stand in your way.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The other comments are completed but missing the below two citations which was provided in the previous comments, both studies discussed COVID-19 Impacts, modeling and Opportunities in digital word. Go through both studies and cite them.

S. Khan and A. Alfaifi, "Modeling of Coronavirus Behavior to Predict It’s Spread," International Journal of Advanced Computer Science Applications, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 394-399, 2020.

A. U. Haq, J. P. Li, S. Ahmad, S. Khan, M. A. Alshara, and R. M. Alotaibi, "Diagnostic approach for accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 employing deep learning and transfer learning techniques through chest X-ray images clinical data in E-healthcare," Sensors, vol. 21, no. 24, p. 8219, 2021.

Author Response

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