In Brazil, 30 per cent of credit card users now rely on the instrument to cover daily expenses such as groceries and utilities, according to a Serasa survey of 1,500 consumers. The finding marks a shift from the card’s traditional role as a tool for instalment purchases. In Argentina, the pressure on household budgets is visible in delinquency rates: personal loan arrears have reached 11 per cent, up from a historical norm of 3 per cent, economist Carolina Mannucci told local media, while credit card defaults stand at 8.4 per cent. Mannucci linked the deterioration to the loss of purchasing power and interest rates that exceed 100 per cent annually at some non-bank lenders.

The reliance on short-term credit is unfolding alongside structural gaps in the supply of finance. In Iran, economist Farhad Nili noted that while 90 per cent of adults hold a bank account, only 4 per cent have access to credit cards that allow liquidity management, creating what he described as a “missing layer” in the financial system. Kenya’s revised MSME policy estimates a financing gap of Sh3.3 trillion, and the Treasury’s PPP directorate recently rejected a US investor’s proposal for a greenfield Nairobi-Mombasa expressway after finding weaknesses in its financial structure and viability. The government now plans to expand the existing road into a four-lane tolled highway, a redesign that officials say will reduce land-acquisition costs and toll levels.

Infrastructure financing models are being tested elsewhere. In Kenya, electric motorcycle battery-swapping firm Spiro suspended its franchising programme after prospective investors could not meet the Sh1 million minimum capital requirement per station; only 15 per cent of its 416 swap stations are franchise-operated. By contrast, Brazil’s business credit market is expanding through receivables-backed lending. A study by PwC and the Brazilian Association of Digital Credit recorded a 68 per cent increase in the volume of credit granted by specialised platforms, a development attributed to the integration of Open Finance data and the use of future card receivables and electronic invoices as collateral.

The next milestones are regulatory. Kenya’s Finance Act 2026, effective 1 July, removed the 15 per cent corporate tax rate and VAT exemptions that had supported affordable housing construction for nearly a decade, forcing developers to recalculate project costs. In Brazil, the central bank reports that the Open Finance ecosystem has surpassed 100 million active consents for data sharing, a threshold that market participants expect to further expand credit access for small and medium enterprises.