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JGITM Article Catalog>
JGITM 2009 12.2 Article 4
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$14.95
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JG2009-12.2Art4 |
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The Role of ICT in Helping Parallel Paths Converge: Microcredit and Correspondent Banking in Brazil
Eduardo Henrique Diniz, Marlei Pozzebon, and Martin Jayo
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 lowincome
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.
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