Digital Finance and Small Business Resilience
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Abstract
Digital finance can strengthen small-business resilience by accelerating payments, widening access to working capital, improving transaction records, and enabling remote operations during disruptions. This article examines how mobile money, digital payments, fintech credit, online banking, embedded finance, and digital insurance affect the capacity of micro and small enterprises to absorb shocks, maintain essential activity, and recover. The analysis integrates financial-inclusion and dynamic-capability perspectives. It concludes that the strongest resilience gains arise when financial tools are embedded in business processes and supported by digital skills, reliable infrastructure, consumer protection, and cybersecurity. Digital finance is not automatically beneficial: opaque pricing, over-indebtedness, fraud, platform dependence, and data exclusion can transfer rather than reduce risk. A balanced policy framework should therefore combine interoperable infrastructure, responsible innovation, capability building, and effective redress.
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References
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