When the Platform Becomes the Bank: Embedded Finance, Artificial Intelligence, and the Politics of Inclusion in the Global South

Olaniyi Evans

Hequation Review, 2026, vol. 1, issue 2, 7-12

Abstract: Financial services across the Global South are being structurally reorganised. Embedded finance and artificial intelligence are dismantling the bank-as-destination model, inserting credit, payments and insurance into the ambient layer of digital commerce. Drawing on comparative evidence from Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, this note examines the structural drivers, regulatory architectures and investment implications of this transition. The central finding is that technology amplifies institutional quality: where governance is credible and public digital infrastructure is sound, embedded finance generates genuine inclusion; where it is absent, it deepens dependency.

Keywords: Embedded finance; digital public infrastructure; AI-driven credit; financial inclusion; Global South fintech (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F36 G21 G28 O16 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32340861 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:heq:heqrev:v1y2026i2a2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Hequation Review from Hequation
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Olaniyi Evans ().