Privacy International has published a very important report on fintech and data privacy mainly focusing on Kenya and India.

Fintech: Privacy and Identity in the New Data-intensive Financial Sector shows how everyday habits and data points are used by fintech companies to create profiles and social classes of who can get loan facilities. The amount of surveillance individuals are subjected to for the sake of ‘qualifying’ for a loan is dehumanizing, to say the least. The report features Tala, branch and M-Kopa operations to illustrate the tradeoffs Kenyans are making between Privacy and credit access.

“As the examples in this chapter show, this [calls and text] is amongst the key data sources used for alternative credit scoring in Kenya. This data is being used by lenders like Tala and Branch, without the protections that might be expected for this data. There are also other concerns: the scope of what falls within the concept of financial identity. More and more aspects of people’s lives are falling within the scope of what that is; more is being observed, analysed, and affecting an individual’s financial standing. Along with that increase in scope comes an increase in power, of fintech companies themselves as well as the financial sector more generally.” (pg 32/33)