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A Critical History of Poverty Finance: Colonial Roots and Neoliberal Failures
A comprehensive historical tracing of how the contemporary finance-poverty-development nexus emerged.
'The definitive account of the history of poverty finance' - Susanne Soederberg
Finance, mobile, and digital technologies - or 'fintech' - are being heralded in the world of development by the likes of the IMF and World Bank as a silver bullet in the fight against poverty. But should we believe the hype?
A Critical History of Poverty Finance demonstrates how newfangled 'digital financial inclusion' efforts suffer from the same essential flaws as earlier iterations of neoliberal 'financial inclusion.' Relying on artificially created markets that simply aren't there among the world's most disadvantaged economic actors, they also reinforce existing patterns of inequality and uneven development, many of which date back to the colonial era.
Bernards offers an astute analysis of the current fintech fad, contextualized through a detailed colonial history of development finance, that ultimately reveals the neoliberal vision of poverty alleviation for the pipe dream it is.
'The definitive account of the history of poverty finance' - Susanne Soederberg
Finance, mobile, and digital technologies - or 'fintech' - are being heralded in the world of development by the likes of the IMF and World Bank as a silver bullet in the fight against poverty. But should we believe the hype?
A Critical History of Poverty Finance demonstrates how newfangled 'digital financial inclusion' efforts suffer from the same essential flaws as earlier iterations of neoliberal 'financial inclusion.' Relying on artificially created markets that simply aren't there among the world's most disadvantaged economic actors, they also reinforce existing patterns of inequality and uneven development, many of which date back to the colonial era.
Bernards offers an astute analysis of the current fintech fad, contextualized through a detailed colonial history of development finance, that ultimately reveals the neoliberal vision of poverty alleviation for the pipe dream it is.
- GenresHistory
240 pages, Paperback
Published August 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 2, 2022
The absurdity of Baron Munchausen grasping his hair to lift himself and his horse out of a bog has long amused young and old.
Analogous stories of how poor people can ‘bootstrap’ themselves out of poverty -- stories marketed with slogans such as self-reliance, resilience, bottom billion business creation and the like -- have been celebrated and re-broadcast by Western opinion-formers and policy-makers.
This book takes a hard look at several such stories, notably about microfinance, microinsurance and fintech banking. It chronicles their ballyhooed rises, their unmasking, re-branding or substitution by yet other tonics for the poor. Intriguing are the accounts of futile efforts by the cure-all salespeople, the “professional associations, consultants, academics, philanthropies, and international organisations” to get global finance on board, “to coax capital into doing things it’s not particularly interested in doing.”
Prominent among this book’s conclusions is one consistent with the failed careers of other fads and fashions in the development-and-aid industry, “a dynamic cutting across all of the interventions discussed in this book”. It is that those notions may be bogus, but are singularly successful in diverting attention from authentic and effective anti-poverty policies: “[P]overty finance has persistently, and usually explicitly, been a way of avoiding public provision or redistribution.” It is thus a problem posing as a solution.
Analogous stories of how poor people can ‘bootstrap’ themselves out of poverty -- stories marketed with slogans such as self-reliance, resilience, bottom billion business creation and the like -- have been celebrated and re-broadcast by Western opinion-formers and policy-makers.
This book takes a hard look at several such stories, notably about microfinance, microinsurance and fintech banking. It chronicles their ballyhooed rises, their unmasking, re-branding or substitution by yet other tonics for the poor. Intriguing are the accounts of futile efforts by the cure-all salespeople, the “professional associations, consultants, academics, philanthropies, and international organisations” to get global finance on board, “to coax capital into doing things it’s not particularly interested in doing.”
Prominent among this book’s conclusions is one consistent with the failed careers of other fads and fashions in the development-and-aid industry, “a dynamic cutting across all of the interventions discussed in this book”. It is that those notions may be bogus, but are singularly successful in diverting attention from authentic and effective anti-poverty policies: “[P]overty finance has persistently, and usually explicitly, been a way of avoiding public provision or redistribution.” It is thus a problem posing as a solution.
November 27, 2022
Enjoyable and informative read tracing a history of poverty finance, showing how the patterns of uneven development are embedded in colonial histories and providing rationale for its conclusion that poverty finance is fundamentally incapable of overcoming the underlying patterns of uneven development toward which it is addressed
I thought the author referenced and described the relevant literature well, particularly when explaining how commercial microcredit replicated and exacerbated the patterns of uneven credit development as a result of the tension between inclusion and stratification
The chapter criticising microfinance and markets as the default mode of development intervention was also excellent in explaining why markets cannot deliver adequate means of finance or risk management to many of the poorest, and the inability to think beyond markets as a means of provision, which leads to the conclusion that the continued push to engineer markets is an indication of the structural power of finance capital in development
Highly recommended for anyone interested in poverty finance
I thought the author referenced and described the relevant literature well, particularly when explaining how commercial microcredit replicated and exacerbated the patterns of uneven credit development as a result of the tension between inclusion and stratification
The chapter criticising microfinance and markets as the default mode of development intervention was also excellent in explaining why markets cannot deliver adequate means of finance or risk management to many of the poorest, and the inability to think beyond markets as a means of provision, which leads to the conclusion that the continued push to engineer markets is an indication of the structural power of finance capital in development
Highly recommended for anyone interested in poverty finance
September 23, 2025
An easy read for amateurs, so worth the four stars.
It includes many proof points that poverty finance doesn’t solve the fundamental life problems for people with lower income. But maybe it really isn’t intended to… fintech providers are profit seeking organizations after all. Maybe inclusion just means having the data of more people, increase the company valuation. I don’t think these fintechs goals are to bring average incomes up.
I would prefer the author gave recommendations or examples of how governments might have tried to solve this, since Bernards comes from a background in sustainable development.
It includes many proof points that poverty finance doesn’t solve the fundamental life problems for people with lower income. But maybe it really isn’t intended to… fintech providers are profit seeking organizations after all. Maybe inclusion just means having the data of more people, increase the company valuation. I don’t think these fintechs goals are to bring average incomes up.
I would prefer the author gave recommendations or examples of how governments might have tried to solve this, since Bernards comes from a background in sustainable development.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews