By that measure, Uganda has made remarkable progress. Yet as impressive as this progress has been, it raises a more important question: what comes after access?
The next frontier of financial inclusion is not helping people spend money. It is helping them save, invest, and ultimately build wealth. Uganda’s real challenge is, therefore, not financial exclusion. It is asset poverty.
The solution begins with savings. Institutions such as the National Social Security Fund have demonstrated the power of aggregating relatively small contributions from ordinary workers into a substantial pool of long-term capital.
The challenge is that most Ugandans remain outside such structured savings arrangements.
Digital platforms offer an opportunity to change that. This is particularly valid because more than two thirds of Ugandans currently have access to a mobile phone.
Uganda’s digital finance revolution has largely focused on payments. The next stage should focus on wealth creation. Payments help people move money. Savings help people keep money. Investments help people grow money.
The future belongs to institutions that help customers make that journey from transactions to wealth accumulation.
The broader economic implications are equally significant. Uganda has long struggled with mobilising domestic savings.
Low savings rates limit the amount of capital available for investment in agriculture, industry, infrastructure, and enterprise development. Yet the country now possesses digital platforms capable of reaching millions of people at relatively low cost.
If those platforms can encourage even modest but consistent saving, the cumulative effect could be transformational. Millions of small deposits can become billions of shillings in productive capital. That is precisely how societies move from consumption-led growth to investment-led development.
The future of financial inclusion should, therefore, not be measured solely by the number of accounts opened or transactions processed.
Instead, it should be measured by the number of households with emergency savings, the number of farmers building financial resilience, the number of young people accumulating investment capital, and the number of Ugandans whose financial assets are growing over time. Access remains important. But access is only the beginning.