Read the whole thing or at least watch the video below.
They were paprika farmers in Malawi participating in a new study that shows fingerprinting can help encourage borrowers to repay their loans. Like many impoverished countries, Malawi lacks a national identification system. Most of the population lives in rural areas with few government services. Even ID as basic as a birth certificate is rare in the southeastern African nation.
Another amazing thing abuot the study is that it found a 234% ROI on biometric spending and that loan performance among the riskiest contracts nearly doubled.
Biometrics can be a leapfrogging technology for building better institutions in the developing world.
