Digital Public Infrastructure and SME Financing in Africa: Evidencefrom Documented Country Experiences
Keywords:
credit information systems; digital identity; digital public infrastructure; interoperable payments; SME financing; sub-Saharan Africa.Abstract
Digital public infrastructure is presented as a foundation for inclusive finance, yet its contribution to small and medium-sized enterprise financing in Africa remains insufficiently integrated and comparatively examined. This study investigated how digital identity, interoperable payments, credit-information systems and secure data-sharing arrangements influenced SME identification, transaction visibility, credit assessment and loan access in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia. It adopted a multiple document-based case-study design. Evidence was drawn from peer-reviewed studies, central-bank publications, and reports from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank published between 2021 and 2026. Directed qualitative content analysis, within-case explanation, pattern matching and cross-case synthesis were applied. The findings showed that digital identity reduced onboarding and verification barriers, while interoperable payments generated transaction records supporting cash-flow assessment. Credit-information systems reduced information asymmetry, although informal enterprises remained inadequately covered. Secure data sharing offered potential for faster underwriting, but implementation and SME-level evidence remained limited. Kenya recorded the strongest transaction-based digital-credit experience; Nigeria and Ghana demonstrated mature payment foundations; and Ethiopia showed emerging identity-payment integration. Financing benefits depended on interoperability, institutional capacity, lender participation, affordability, data quality, cybersecurity and consumer protection. The study concludes that digital public infrastructure can improve SME financing, but may widen exclusion where rural, women-owned, informal and cash-dependent enterprises cannot participate effectively. It advances conditional policy propositions rather than statistical generalisations.
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