Digital microfinance was once seen as a powerful tool for boosting women-owned businesses across Africa, offering fast and convenient access to loans through mobile apps and online platforms. But in reality, many women have found themselves sidelined as unpredictable fees, confusing repayment structures, and rigid systems make borrowing even more difficult.

Osho Ademola Joel, a doctoral candidate at Glasgow Caledonian University’s London Campus, has spent the past three years examining this gap as part of his Doctorate in Business Administration. Through interviews with 20 women entrepreneurs and an analysis of 317 datasets, he uncovered a troubling trend: digital lending platforms often fail the very women they were designed to support. Some end up paying more to access smaller loans, while others are shut out entirely.

Many of the women he engaged with eventually abandoned digital lending apps and returned to traditional Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), which they described as more transparent, predictable and rooted in community trust. One participant captured the frustration clearly: “I left the lending app because the fees kept changing. My savings group was slower, but at least I trusted it.”

Osho Ademola Joel’s findings challenge the widespread belief that technology alone can solve financial access problems. His research shows that successful financial tools must reflect the same values that make ROSCAs thrive: trust, transparency, fairness, accountability and communal ownership.

This understanding inspired him to create Ajoti, a digital platform that modernises ROSCAs without stripping away their cultural and relational strengths.

Ajoti formalises traditional savings groups while maintaining their flexibility, using technology to enhance rather than replace the systems women already rely on. The platform includes automated cycle management, transparent contribution and payout tracking, AI-driven behavioural scoring, secure digital identities for unbanked women, fraud-resistant structures, cross-border participation for diaspora communities and integrated research tools for studying trust and economic empowerment.

Although ROSCAs circulate more than an estimated $500 billion annually worldwide, most remain informal and undocumented, leaving participants vulnerable to fraud, exclusion and lack of financial records. By digitising even a small portion of this vast ecosystem, Ajoti opens pathways to affordable credit based on real behavioural data, secure financial identity creation, better community-based financial management and responsible financial inclusion that does not exploit users.

The platform is being developed as a scalable fintech ecosystem with multiple partnership and revenue opportunities, including ROSCA management services, digital identity and behavioural scoring APIs, lender integration for fair credit access, premium planning tools for women entrepreneurs, and cross-border ROSCA modules for diaspora remittances. Ajoti is currently in pilot testing in Nigeria and preparing for launch in the United Kingdom, with broader pan-African and diaspora expansion on the horizon.

For institutions, Ajoti offers a rare combination of academic grounding, cultural relevance and technological innovation. It is rooted in research, shaped by the lived experiences of women and built with ethical AI principles. It addresses a global multibillion-dollar informal finance sector while preserving the trust-based systems that communities depend on. It also aligns with financial inclusion priorities in Nigeria, the UK and internationally.

As Osho Ademola Joel notes, “Technology alone cannot drive inclusion. It must be rooted in trust, transparency, and accountability — the same values that make ROSCAs thrive. Ajoti brings these values into the digital age.”

Ajoti represents a new direction for digital financial inclusion — one that listens to women, respects local realities and uses technology ethically to expand opportunity. 

The platform is now positioned for institutional partnerships, research collaborations, policy engagement and large-scale deployment across Africa, the UK and the global diaspora. It offers a timely invitation to organisations committed to empowering women and transforming informal finance into a transparent, inclusive and connected financial ecosystem.