La Fintech comme nouvel outil technologique au service du développement durable.

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, the members of the United Nations Organisation established a range of objectives to achieve for sustainable development. Among those goals, the first one was dedicated to the poverty eradication. Around the same period, began the digital revolution and new technologies such as FinTech started to become very popular. It was so famous that some people asked themselves if innovation could perhaps be the key to reduce poverty around the world. Could we use FinTech as a new tool for sustainable development ? The topic being relatively large, we focused on determining if FinTech could go further than microfinance to help changing the world? Microfinance is a sub-department of the financial sector that aims to offer services to unbanked individuals. It includes savings, microcredit loans and insurances with the purpose of reducing poverty. For our analysis, we put the focus on microcredit. On that matter, literature shows several key points that contribute to bypassing financial exclusion: geographical and cultural proximity, progressive loans, culture of perception, suitable processes, warrants and appropriate products. But even if those tools help fighting against poverty, some issues remain unsolved: there is still a lot of unbanked people, informal loans remain a reality and transaction costs are still very high. Then, we analyzed some examples of FinTech applications offering loan services such as MoKash, Musoni and M-Shwari. Those companies have shown that technology can help reaching populations in underdeveloped countries. Thanks to a basic mobile phone, it is now possible for the farmer living in a remote rural area to borrow money to create new business opportunities. Mobile operators allow that technology to thrive by offering simple, convenient, easy to access services to people that lack means to reach traditional bank services. Can FinTech fit in microcredit’s shoes ? Are products like MoKash, Musoni and M-Shwari able to contribute in solving poverty ? There are indeed some benefits to the usage of FinTech technologies. They seem to reach more isolated individuals, at reduced transaction costs, and offer a large range of products that are easier to understand. They also suit to the client cash- flow and are a lot faster than microfinance institutions, capable of signing new loans in only a few seconds. But technology also shows some weaknesses about regulation, financial stability and protection of the users’ data. Those flaws must be solved by innovation in order to insure sustainable development.