In recent decades, microfinance institutions with financial products designed for low income groups have been established all over the world. However, credit access for farmers in developing countries remains low. Digital financial services are rapidly expanding globally at the moment. They also bear great potential to address the credit needs of farmers in remote rural areas. Beyond mobile money services, digital credit is successively offered and also discussed in literature. Compared to conventional credit which is granted based on a thorough assessment of the loan applicant’s financial situation, digital credit is granted based on an automated analysis of the existing data of the loan applicant. Despite the potential of digital credit for serving the credit needs of rural farmers, empirical research on farmers’ willingness to pay for digital credit is non-existent. We employ a discrete choice experiment to compare farmers’ willingness to pay for digital and conventional credit. We apply loan attributes which reflect typical characteristics of both credit products. Our results indicate a higher willingness to pay for digital credit compared to conventional credit. Furthermore, we find that the proximity to withdraw borrowed money has a higher effect on farmers’ willingness to pay for digital credit compared to conventional credit. Furthermore, our results show that instalment repayment condition reduces farmers’ willingness to pay for digital credit whilst increasing their willingness to pay for conventional credit. Additionally, we find that longer loan duration has a higher effect on farmers’ willingness to pay for digital credit compared to conventional credit whereas higher additional credit cost has a lower effect on farmers’ willingness to pay for conventional credit compared to digital credit. Our results highlight the potential of digital credit for agricultural finance in rural areas of Madagascar if a certain level of innovation is applied in designing digital credit products.

This study investigates the relationship between financial literacy and farmers' awareness of digital credit in rural Madagascar. We apply questions that demonstrate individuals' understanding of the four fundamental concepts for financial decision making: numeracy, interest compounding, inflation and risk diversification to measure farmers' financial literacy. We find that financial literacy has a positive and statistically significant effect on farmers' awareness of digital credit. Our study highlights the importance of financial literacy for increasing farmers' awareness of digital credit in rural areas of Madagascar and supports the widely held view that financial literacy is crucial for individuals' awareness of financial products.

Purpose With exclusive data from a commercial microfinance institution (MFI) in Madagascar, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if loan officer rotation (change of loan officer) has an effect on credit access (loan approval) in rural and in urban areas. The authors further analyze how the frequency of loan officer rotation affects credit access in rural and in urban areas. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply propensity score matching to compare credit access between loan applicants who experienced loan officer rotation and loan applicants who experienced no loan officer rotation in rural and in urban areas. Findings Results show that loan officer rotation has a positive and statistically significant effect on credit access. The authors observe further that loan officer rotation has a different effect on credit access in rural and in urban areas. Whilst rural loan applicants who experienced loan officer rotation are more likely to have credit access, urban loan applicants show no statistically significant effect of loan officer rotation on credit access. For the frequency effect on credit access, the authors observe that one loan officer rotation has a positive and statistically significant effect on credit access whereas results are mixed for two loan officer rotations. Research limitations/implications Even though the authors can show that loan officer rotation can improve credit access to loan applicants, especially in rural areas, the conditions in Madagascar are unique. Therefore, results need to be verified in other countries and institutional contexts. Practical implications From the perspective of MFI, the authors recommend that the management of MFI needs to provide better tools to loan officers to improve on the evaluation of agricultural loan products or standardize the assessment of agricultural loan products to improve on lending decisions. Further, if applicable, the authors recommend that MFI should consider using credit worthiness assessment procedures which rely less on loan officer’s judgment for loan evaluation, such as automated systems. From the perspective of loan applicants, the authors recommend that loan applicants should request for a change of loan officer if they experience successive loan applications rejection. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to provide empirical evidence on the effect and frequency of loan officer rotation on credit access in Sub-Sahara Africa, and Madagascar, in particular.

Previous studies highlight the limited credit access for farmers compared to non-agricultural firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. A new innovation which has the potential to serve the financing needs of farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa is digital credit. However, empirical studies on farmers’ preferences for digital credit is limited. Formal financial institutions and mobile network operators are two different delivery channels for digital credit with different loan characteristics. We apply a discrete choice experiment to investigate smallholder farmers’ preferences for digital credit in Madagascar. Our results show that digital credit is more attractive for farmers if it offers a lower interest rate per month, longer loan duration, and flexible repayment conditions adapted to farmers’ production needs. Our results highlight the potential of digital credit for rural farmers if mobile network operators could provide digital credit with longer loan maturities and formal financial institutions could offer digital credit with more flexible repayment conditions.

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