Today’s episode of the Digital Human Finance Series presents insights from a study of “unstably-housed” people in Chicago who used Facebook and crowdfunding platforms as a way to reach out to strangers outside their offline connections in the hope of getting help or raising money to make a new start.

Kenya’s mobile money service, M-Pesa, shapes—and is shaped by—social networks in Kenya. In this post, part of the Digital Human Finance series, we explore anthropologist Sibel Kusimba’s research on mobile money in Kenya.

Finthropology is pleased to announce a new blog series—Digital Human Finance—that highlights the human aspects of digital transformation. We share findings from qualitative research in finance to illustrate the usefulness of understanding human behaviour in community contexts.

Imagine a world in which every time you pay a friend back for a meal you shared, all your friends—and even more strangers—know about it. Welcome to the world of Venmo, the Paypal-owned mobile payment service that allows users in the USA to split bills, pay rent, and pay merchants. 

It’s that time of year again—one in which we reflect on our achievements and struggles, and start looking ahead to a new year. It’s certainly been an interesting one here at Finthropology. Read on for our review of 2024—and big news for 2025!

We are pleased to announce the release of a report, The Financial Ecosystem for Smallholder Farming Households in Lao PDR. The report maps the financial ecosystem for smallholder farmers in Laos and makes recommendations for stakeholders to develop the ecosystem while mitigating risks.

Today’s finance industry generally agrees that data-driven decisions make for good business and great design. But what decisions are and aren’t we able to make from quantitative data alone? When must qualitative data step in? The Apply Club Finance held an event to discuss these issues.

Not too long ago, people had little choice in financial services. How do they choose now? Based on our research in different countries, we have identified six main factors that people consider: value, convenience, control, trust, risk, and emotions.

How do open ecosystems change the financial services offerings to specific customer groups? How do such solutions fit customer preferences, and how are they used? In this post, we dive into data privacy, embedded finance and financial inclusion.

Digital transformation is a broad agenda that includes cultural change. Financial services are shaped by customers' expectations and decisions, just as customer choices in finance are shaped by the services available to them. How do customer expectations and financial services change in response to each other?

Finance is not something we usually associate with human sentiments. While we covet money, we usually see it as a means to an end. Yet there is no doubt that money is associated with emotions and is more about people than it is about numbers. How can we rethink finance as human?

Finthropology is pleased to launch a new report, Digital Change in Smallholder Farming in the Philippines: Emerging Practices in E-Commerce and Finance.  The report explores the practices emerging from the introduction of e-commerce and digital financial tools in the area of Lucban, southeast of Manila.

A very warm holiday season and a happy new year from all of us at Finthropolgy. Interested to learn what we’ve been up to in 2023? We give you the scoop in this post, and some exciting news for 2024.

Finthropology is pleased to launch a new report, Digital Change in Southeast Asian Agriculture: A study of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, East Timor, and Indonesia. The report, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), explores the state of development of agricultural extension apps and research on digital farming in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, East Timor, and Indonesia, in light of the active promotion of digitisation from governments and international organisations.

Customer-centricity refers to the capacity of people inside a business to comprehend the circumstances, viewpoints and expectations of customers in order to generate customer pleasure, loyalty and advocacy. But how good is quantitative data really at helping us be customer-centric? What do we gain and what do we miss when we take a quantitative approach?

In this post we take you on a guided tour of The Hague’s financial history: from an old goldsmith’s to a savings bank for the poor, from Johan de Witte’s actuarial inventions to a home for old men. You can enjoy this tour from your couch or join us in person with our map!

Credit unions are built on collaboration. This report explores new opportunities and risks in small credit union back-office collaboration with a focus on technology, infrastructure, governance, and culture.

Finthropology are honoured to have contributed research and analysis to a new report on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), published by the MIT Digital Currency Initiative (MIT DCI) and Maiden Labs

At Finthropology we build human insights for finance. We’re often asked whether research isn’t too slow to contribute to innovation. At the recent EWPN conference in Amsterdam we discussed this topic with a panel of finance specialists. The answers might surprise you.

Central banks around the world are increasingly looking to develop Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as the use of cash dwindles and people turn to third party providers of payments and new forms of money. But why would people use them?