The Role of ICT in Helping Parallel Paths Converge: Microcredit and Correspondent Banking in Brazil

Abstract

Two important phenomena in the financial sector have drawn attention in recent years: on the one hand, microcredit is growing and earning renown as a powerful instrument for income generation and poverty reduction in a number of developing countries; on the other hand, correspondent banking (CB) outlets have risen to prominence as a main channel for the distribution of financial services to the low- income population, with particular success in Brazil. This paper argues that information and communication technology (ICT) applications have the potential to help these two movements, until now tracing parallel paths, to converge. We apply an emergent conceptual framework that combines three theoretical lenses: social shaping of technology, structurationist view of technology and contextualism. The result is an original reading of the possible combinations of CB and microfinance in Brazil and the expectation that the multilevel framework might help to understand similar complex phenomena in other Latin America contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• ICT Applicatons
• Banking Technologies
• Computing in Developing Countries
• Microfinance and Microcredit
• Correspondent Banking

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eduardo Henrique Diniz

Eduardo Dinizundacao, M.Sc. and Ph.D., has been a Professor at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas in São Paulo, Brazil since 1999. He was a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley from 1996 to 1998, and at HEC Montreal in 2007. His areas of interests are banking and government technologies and ICT for development. He is an associate with the Center for Excellence in Banking and the Center for Studies in Microfinance, both at FGV in São Paulo, Brazil.

Marlei Pozzebon

Marlei Pozzebon, Ph.D. is associate professor at HEC Montréal. Her research interests are the social, political and cultural aspects of ICT in practice and the use of theories of practice and qualitative methods in IS research. One of her specialties is training and consultancy in the business intelligence area. Dr. Pozzebon has published articles in Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Information Technology and People, Journal of Information Technology and Journal of Strategic Information Systems.

Martin Jayo

Martin Jayo holds a B.A. Economics and an MsC in Media and Communications, both from the University of São Paulo. He has 15 years of professional experience and is currently a lecturer in IS at Fundação Getulio Vargas, São Paulo, Brazil, where he is also pursuing his Ph.D. His research interests are related to the social and cultural aspects of ICT in developing countries (ICT4D), banking technology and microfinance.