{"title":"The impact of technology on access to credit: A review of loan approval and terms in rural Vietnam and Thailand","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102504","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The acceleration of economic digitalisation has been immense in recent years and coupled with the rapid development of technology-augmented finance. However, less understood is how such technology-augmented finance has impacted access to credit within rural contexts of developing economies. Using household-level survey data, our results provide novel evidence of a negative relationship, on average, between rural households’ access to credit as measured by loan approvals, and internet access. More specifically, use of internet in rural areas of the countries under analysis reduces the chance of accessing credit by up to 65%. Moreover, when we further investigate loan terms, our findings indicate that internet users get six-month shorter loan durations and have a lower interest cost of borrowing of up to 1.2%. The results for loan approval rates are persistent for formal loans and for nations at a lower stage of economic development, i.e., only within the less developed Vietnamese rural context. Our findings provide richer insights into the impact of information and telecommunication technologies (ITC) on access to finance in developing countries characterised by significant proportions of rural areas affected by severe information asymmetry-related issues that may be amplified or reduced by increased internet connectivity. Our results carry important policy implications. On the demand side, they highlight the need to ensure that government initiatives should aim to better educate rural borrowers in relation to financial literacy and credit choices. On the supply side, our findings urge the need to introduce policies for formal lenders targeted towards the reduction of the information asymmetries pervasive in rural areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531924002976/pdfft?md5=6982ef3a028dedf648b27145bf218778&pid=1-s2.0-S0275531924002976-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Research in International Business and Finance","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531924002976","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The acceleration of economic digitalisation has been immense in recent years and coupled with the rapid development of technology-augmented finance. However, less understood is how such technology-augmented finance has impacted access to credit within rural contexts of developing economies. Using household-level survey data, our results provide novel evidence of a negative relationship, on average, between rural households’ access to credit as measured by loan approvals, and internet access. More specifically, use of internet in rural areas of the countries under analysis reduces the chance of accessing credit by up to 65%. Moreover, when we further investigate loan terms, our findings indicate that internet users get six-month shorter loan durations and have a lower interest cost of borrowing of up to 1.2%. The results for loan approval rates are persistent for formal loans and for nations at a lower stage of economic development, i.e., only within the less developed Vietnamese rural context. Our findings provide richer insights into the impact of information and telecommunication technologies (ITC) on access to finance in developing countries characterised by significant proportions of rural areas affected by severe information asymmetry-related issues that may be amplified or reduced by increased internet connectivity. Our results carry important policy implications. On the demand side, they highlight the need to ensure that government initiatives should aim to better educate rural borrowers in relation to financial literacy and credit choices. On the supply side, our findings urge the need to introduce policies for formal lenders targeted towards the reduction of the information asymmetries pervasive in rural areas.
期刊介绍:
Research in International Business and Finance (RIBAF) seeks to consolidate its position as a premier scholarly vehicle of academic finance. The Journal publishes high quality, insightful, well-written papers that explore current and new issues in international finance. Papers that foster dialogue, innovation, and intellectual risk-taking in financial studies; as well as shed light on the interaction between finance and broader societal concerns are particularly appreciated. The Journal welcomes submissions that seek to expand the boundaries of academic finance and otherwise challenge the discipline. Papers studying finance using a variety of methodologies; as well as interdisciplinary studies will be considered for publication. Papers that examine topical issues using extensive international data sets are welcome. Single-country studies can also be considered for publication provided that they develop novel methodological and theoretical approaches or fall within the Journal''s priority themes. It is especially important that single-country studies communicate to the reader why the particular chosen country is especially relevant to the issue being investigated. [...] The scope of topics that are most interesting to RIBAF readers include the following: -Financial markets and institutions -Financial practices and sustainability -The impact of national culture on finance -The impact of formal and informal institutions on finance -Privatizations, public financing, and nonprofit issues in finance -Interdisciplinary financial studies -Finance and international development -International financial crises and regulation -Financialization studies -International financial integration and architecture -Behavioral aspects in finance -Consumer finance -Methodologies and conceptualization issues related to finance