Financial inclusion is recognized as a key factor for promoting social development, inclusive growth, equal opportunity, and human development. Despite the consensus regarding the importance of financial inclusion, little is known about its nexus with cross-border banking in an ever-increasing financial globalization. We examine the effect of foreign bank presence on the various dimensions of financial inclusion using panel data for 17 African countries from 2004 to 2018. We find that foreign banks reduce financial inclusion when the degree of foreign bank presence is high. We show that the effect of foreign bank presence on financial inclusion depends on institutional quality, with its impact turning from negative to positive when institutional quality increases to a higher level. The results are robust to different sensitivity analyses. Our results imply that promoting institutional quality is essential to use foreign bank presence as an opportunity for ensuring an inclusive financial system.

普惠金融被公认为促进社会发展、包容性增长、机会均等和人类发展的关键因素。尽管就金融包容性的重要性达成了共识，但在不断增长的金融全球化中，人们对其与跨境银行业务的关系知之甚少。我们使用 2004 年至 2018 年 17 个非洲国家的面板数据研究了外资银行的存在对金融包容性各个维度的影响。我们发现，当外资银行的存在程度较高时，外资银行会降低金融包容性。我们表明，外资银行对普惠金融的影响取决于制度质量，当制度质量提高到更高水平时，其影响会从负面转为正面。结果对不同的敏感性分析是稳健的。