叠测听Gianluca Iazzolino听补苍诲听.
Getting access to credit is a critical challenge for small-holder farmers all over Sub-Saharan Africa . A new breed of financial-technology firms (fintech) promises to address this issue, claiming that digital technologies can lower the barriers for borrowers and cut transaction costs for lenders. As part of our, we have been examining these claims, studying how tech companies translate them into business initiatives and exploring the implications for knowledge production, economic growth and value redistribution.
In rural Kenya, fintech innovations are premised on greater efficiency and transparency and inspired by narratives of digital disintermediation. Similarly to what argued for migrant remittances by Vincent Guermond in a previous post of this blog series , digital lenders harness data (extracted through digital infrastructures) and algorithms to make farmers more legible and, therefore, more predictable. In order to expand their pool of data, Kenyan fintechs are increasingly embedding themselves into inter-connected digital infrastructures, or platforms. These platforms provide farmers with end-to-end solutions, and thereby bundle together financial services with the provision of agricultural inputs and information extension services. In so doing, lenders recalibrate and harmonize their risk-assessment procedures, and construct an ideal type of farmer whose financial behaviours and importance in the local value chain can be clearly pinned down.Read More »
黑料社区 