Digital Informal Credit Research Initiative
Studying how digital platforms govern credit access and debt enforcement beyond formal law.
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.
Research Focus
Informal Digital Credit
Non-bank lending, Buy Now, Pay Later schemes, and embedded finance increasingly shape access to consumer credit. DICRI studies how these models operate outside traditional banking structures and how contractual form, interface design, and data profiling redefine eligibility, repayment, and borrower risk.
Governance without Law (GOVLAW)
GOVLAW explores how digital infrastructures displace legal norms in credit governance. Rather than functioning as intermediaries within regulatory frameworks, platforms increasingly determine access and enforcement internally. The project develops a comparative model of legal displacement across diverse legal traditions.
Platform Based Enforcement
Digital platforms embed enforcement directly into technical systems. Automated deductions, behavioural nudging, friction mechanisms, reputational pressure, and account restrictions increasingly replace formal legal procedures. DICRI examines how enforcement-by-design reshapes debtor protection, contestation, and accountability across jurisdictions.
Comparative Digital Credit Governance
Digital credit practices travel across jurisdictions, often replicating similar mechanisms despite different legal traditions. DICRI combines doctrinal mapping, empirical research, and platform analysis to examine how credit governance adapts across 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.