AI Credit for the Unbanked and Microfinance

People may lack conventional credit histories because they have limited formal borrowing, are new to a financial system, live in cash-based economies or face barriers to account access. The World Bank’s Global Findex 2025 survey measures account ownership, borrowing and digital access across 141 economies and reports gaps among groups and places. Microfinance providers may consider payment, sales or other alternative records when assessing borrowers, but those sources are not available or reliable for everyone. Alternative data can add information, yet it can also encode unstable income, shared-device use, gendered access, location or other proxies. A model trained only on prior approved borrowers may learn from selective labels and miss people previously excluded. Data collected for one service may not be appropriate for credit use. Providers need clear permissions, data minimization, validation against a relevant population and a way to correct records. More data can increase coverage for some people and worsen exclusion for others. Start with the decision the loan supports, then test whether additional data improves a measured outcome without imposing unacceptable costs or privacy risks. Compare conventional and alternative-data approaches using repayment, error, approval, complaint and affordability measures, and report who is not represented. Microfinance context varies by country and product, so global findings do not establish a local effect. A score is not a promise of access or a judgment about a person’s character; lenders should explain decisions and preserve human review for exceptions.