SUMMARY
The majority of income earners of small-scale informal economic sectors in most developing regions abstain from mainstream formal banking systems. These income earners rather “bank” informally. Mainstream formal banking institutions also argue that low income earners are “unbankable” and posed business risk. However, emerging literature posits that low income earners would instead provide a profitable formal niche market. Trends with regard adoption and non-adoption of mainstream formal banking systems amongst small income groups were mixed. This paper investigates such patterns in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The results of this paper revealed that the informal cross-border traders who trade between Zambia and South Africa were good adopters of mainstream formal banking. The results however found a sharp contrast in Zambia. In Nyanga, Zimbabwe, the results of this paper revealed that there were a few respondents who had adopted mainstream formal banking while 47.2% of communal cattle farmers in South Africa had adopted mainstream formal banking systems through savings against 52.8% who were left out. Adoption or non-adoption of mainstream formal banking systems patterns vary from region to region, and sector to sector even where income earners were almost equals in terms of household income earnings. Mobile banking and low transaction costs might provide motivation for small-scale income earners to adopt mainstream formal banking.