Economics, Business and Management: Recent Advances Vol. 5

Financial technology is frequently presented as a solution to the information, transaction-cost and collateral constraints that limit smallholder farmers' access to formal finance. Yet evidence of widespread mobile-money adoption does not establish that digital finance is financing agricultural production, improving household welfare or allocating risk fairly. This critical narrative review examines how payment systems, digital lending, alternative-data credit scoring and digitally enabled agricultural risk management interact within rural financial markets. Peer-reviewed empirical and methodological literature published from 2007 to 24 August 2026 was considered, alongside influential earlier foundational work, through searches of accessible scholarly indexes and targeted citation and institutional-source checking. The synthesis distinguishes evidence on general-purpose mobile finance from evidence on agricultural borrowing and differentiates predictive credit-scoring performance from causal effects on farm outcomes. Research from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia indicates that mobile payments can lower transfer frictions and sometimes support input purchases and risk sharing, but farmers' use of digital loans for agricultural investment remains limited in important settings. A recent agricultural lending experiment finds increased investment without consistent average improvements in downstream outcomes, drawing attention to seasonal loan timing. Alternative data can improve repayment prediction in particular populations, although applications to farm borrowers face problems of incomplete digital traces, model drift, correlated weather shocks and potential discrimination. Short-duration loans, poorly disclosed fees and debt-collection practices can undermine the welfare case for digital access. The review proposes a risk-adjusted and rights-aware conception of rural financial inclusion in which loan maturity, farmer consent, data representativeness, risk-sharing arrangements and independently measured borrower outcomes matter as much as application speed. Future evaluation should compare alternative scoring systems and repayment schedules using prospective, seasonally matched designs, transparent welfare endpoints and explicit subgroup audits. Digital finance is a promising infrastructure for rural financial services, but it is not a substitute for agricultural contract design, credible consumer protection or rigorous causal evaluation.