The rapid adoption of mobile money transfer (MMT) in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is facilitating a nexus of inter-personal financial transfers which has hitherto been the least visible dimension of informal finance. At the same time, the success of capturing these flows into a formal...

The aim of this study was to ascertain what can be done by the informal finance sector to close the credit gap in order to improve access to finance by SMEs. SMEs are the backbone of many economies as a result of generating employment and improving GDP. Despite playing such a major role in...

Information asymmetry in the anonymous informal finance market drives the lenders to screen the borrowers by disclosed information. Using data from a powerful online peer-to-peer lending platform, we study the effects of formal financing records on successful funding and default outcomes in the...

The constraint on informal finance is commonly taken to be high costs and limited supply. But the majority of informal investors - family and friends - is often willing to supply funds at negative returns, and yet many borrowers tap family and friends only as a last resort. We explain this...