DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCESS TO CREDIT

In its recent publication “Accelerating the Digitalisation of Trade to Support MSME Financing”, the WTO identifies the challenges that small and medium enterprises face in credit access, exploring the potential of digital technologies.

For many small and medium enterprises (MSME), access to credit marks the difference between prosperity and failure. The document recently published by the WTO examines   some of the main challenges related to the financing of small and medium enterprises, also in relation to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the potential advantage deriving from the use of main digital technologies, such as cloud computing, optical character recognition, Internet of Things, big data analysis, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, distributed ledger technology and application programming interfaces. Their usefulness cannot hide the need for coordinated action between politics, professions, credit institutions and technology, which regulates the applicable  standards,  the methods of exploitation of data, digital identity and its regulation, and which identifies the path to bridge the digital divide that still exists today. Case studies of companies that exploit  these  technologies  denote the practical function of publication.