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The IMF published a paper that combes administrative data on credit, internet penetration and a land reform in Rwanda, to showsthat the complementarity between technology and law can overcome financial frictions. Leveraging quasi-experimental variation in 3G availability from lightning strikes and incidental coverage, it shows that mobile connectivity steers borrowers from microfinance to commercial banks and improves loan terms. These effects are partly due to the role of 3G internet in facilitating the acquisition of land titles from the reform, used as a collateral for bank loans and mortgages. The paper quantifies that the collateral's availability mediates 35% of the overall effect of mobile internet on credit and 80% for collateralized loans.

The Kiva Protocol, launched on Wednesday by the Sierra Leonean government and Kiva, the Silicon Valley microloan company, is a biometric system that links a person's thumbprint with their identity. It will allow the west African country to create a universal credit bureau for the first time, with its backers hoping it will spur lending by banks reluctant to loan to people without credit histories.