MicroFinTech. Expanding Financial Inclusion with Cost-Cutting Innovation

Microfinance is a renowned albeit controversial solution for giving financial access to the unbanked, even if micro-transactions increase costs, limiting outreach potential. The economic and financial sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) is a prerequisite for widening a potentially unlimited client base. Automation decreases costs, expanding the outreach potential, and improving transparency and efficiency. Technological solutions range from branchless mobile banking to geolocalization of customers, digital/social networking for group lending, blockchain validation, big data, and artificial intelligence, up to “MicroFinTech”—FinTech applications adapted to microfinance. This study examines these trendy solutions comprehensively, going beyond the existing literature and showing potential applications to the traditional sustainability versus outreach trade-off.