Why use muscle? Let a bot be the debt collector and never lose a customer

Like in most emerging markets, these last-mile hurdles pose a frustratingly complex challenge to India's creditors. They also increase the overall risk premium for rural advances

A 2021 remake of Get Shorty might not have much use for John Travolta’s Miami mobster character. The debt collector role could go to a bot.

You can test this hypothesis in a most unlikely place to roll out a new technology: the Indian countryside. The setting is perhaps not as odd as it seems, with about 5% to 10% of the country’s farmers not repaying their tractor loans on time. The explanations for tardiness range from failed crops to medical emergencies and strategic defaults in anticipation of state-mandated debt waivers, a regular feature of the political economy.

But delinquency often stems