Digital Informal Credit Research Initiative
Policy and regulatory research on digital credit, AI-enabled debt collection, and platform-based financial governance.
About D.I.C.R.I.
Digital credit is increasingly embedded in everyday platforms. Buy Now, Pay Later schemes, app-based lending, and embedded finance reshape how credit is granted, enforced, and contested.
DICRI examines informal digital credit and platform-based enforcement across jurisdictions. The initiative studies how credit governance shifts from courts and regulators to technical infrastructures that operate through code, interface design, and automated decision-making.
Through comparative legal analysis, empirical research, and platform governance studies, DICRI develops frameworks for understanding digital credit, financial vulnerability, and regulatory displacement in contemporary markets.
Policy Focus
DICRI’s work is structured around four core policy domains reflecting structural shifts in digital credit governance.
Digital Informal Credit Markets
Analysis of non-bank lending, Buy Now, Pay Later schemes, embedded finance, and app-based credit models that restructure access, pricing, and risk allocation across jurisdictions.
Platform Governance and Enforcement
Examination of how enforcement migrates from courts and licensed collectors to algorithms, interface architecture, and platform-based decision systems.
AI-enabled Debt Collection
Study of predictive systems, behavioural optimisation, automated negotiation, and enforcement-by-design mechanisms that reshape borrower protection and regulatory oversight.
Comparative Regulatory Responses
Cross-jurisdictional analysis of supervisory adaptation, regulatory reform, and governance models in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Current Project
GOVLAW – Governing Credit Without Law
GOVLAW examines how digital platforms govern credit access and debt enforcement beyond courts and regulatory oversight. By analysing platform design and comparative legal responses across Denmark, Singapore, and Nigeria, the project develops a model of legal displacement in digital credit markets.
