What is it about?
Self-help groups can be found in many areas of Africa, and their customary rotating credit arrangement is also popular among African diaspora communities. A significant rise has occurred in these groups at the wake of the neoliberal restructuring reforms of the 1980s-90s, with a decline in formal sector employment and state-funded producer cooperatives. At present, these mutual support groups are targeted by FinTech platforms as well as conventional banks with various financial products and software apps. My recent research explores of the contentious interplay between the formal and informal finance in these emerging digital interfaces in Africa. It studies the intersection of FinTech with the social economies of African mutual help groups in Kenya and South Africa.
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Why is it important?
Informal means of financial access continue to flourish in the economies of many African countries, due to long histories of neglect by the formal banking sector. At the same time, the article questions the assumption that FinTech in Africa advances inclusion in formal market spaces. It argues that instead, it could be seen as producing new hybridizations of informal and formal financial practices.
Perspectives
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Platformizing Ubuntu? FinTech, Inclusion, and Mutual Help in Africa, Journal of Cultural Economy, April 2022, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2022.2040569.
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Resources
Special Issue "Fintech in Africa"
Special issue "Fintech in Africa," co-edited by Paul Langley and Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Journal of Cultural Economy, 15/4, 2022
Just Money blog on special issue "Fintech in Africa"
Blog article by Just Money about the JCE special issue "Fintech in Africa"
Finance & Society Network news entry about the special issue "Fintech in Africa"
News entry by Finance & Society Network about the JCE special issue "Fintech in Africa"
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