Description
In the new development agenda, social safety nets have become strategic instruments for advancing financial inclusion across the Global South. This shift is driven by the rise of digital public infrastructures –interoperable, open technological systems that connect governments, financial providers, and users through complex techno-financial architectures. Combining insights from digitalisation and financialisation studies, this paper examines how digital technologies are reshaping welfare provision and redefining the relationship between financial and welfare actors. While existing research shows how fintech companies profit from providing technological services for welfare delivery and marketing high-cost, low-risk loans to beneficiaries, it has largely overlooked how digitalisation transforms welfare agencies and the role of cash transfers within development agendas. Drawing on the Argentine case, I argue that the techno-financial convergence between social protection and digital finance signals a broader financialisation trend I term the creditisation of welfare policy: the growing use of credit –provided by financial actors, NGOs, or state agencies– as a mechanism for governing social conflict. The paper focuses on the role of state institutions, analysing how the social security agency leveraged digital infrastructures to become a major credit provider, using loans to manage social demands amid mounting economic instability.
