Community-Driven Digital Financial Inclusion: Negotiating Trust, Risk and Security in Non-Urban Thailand
Project team
Dr Ruilin Zhu
SPRITE+ Project Lead
Lecturer of Information Systems, and Director of PhD Studies, Lancaster University Management School (LUMS)
Dr Nuttavikhom (Kay) Phanthuwongpakdee
Lead Overseas Partner
Lecturer, Deputy Director of Centre for SDG Research and Support (SDG Move), and Asia Program Coordinator of The Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities – Network (EPIC-N)
Dr Geetika Jain
Overseas Partner
Lecturer of Digital Transformation, Director of MSc FinTech and MSc Business Analytics, Keele University (KU), and local network lead of UK Reproducibility Network
Dr Siyanee Hirunsalee
Overseas Partner
Deputy Dean for Administration and Planning, Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies (PSDS), Thammasat University
Project summary
This project builds on the Thailand-UK World-Class University Consortium to establish a new interdisciplinary sub-network focused on TIPS challenges in Thailand’s non-urban digital economies. It formally integrates Keele University’s expertise in FinTech and digital transformation with SEAMEO’s contextual strengths in social innovation, creating previously non-existent working relationships dedicated to culturally embedded digital security practices.
The collaboration is structured around targeted field visits, co-designed community workshops, and joint analytical synthesis, enabling iterative knowledge exchange and ensuring that empirical insights from Thailand directly inform TIPS research and policy-relevant analysis in the UK.
Topics of common interest
Despite high national-level digital payment adoption, communities outside Thailand’s urban centres engage with digital finance through indigenous, non-formal security practices and intermediary-based trust that often substitute or reconfigure formal technical mechanisms. This exposes a socio-technical gap where Western-centric TIPS models fail to account for local social norms.
The project uncovers this significant untapped research opportunity by theorising “cultural security” in digital financial inclusion, examining how trust, risk, and security are socially constructed and managed in non-urban contexts. By studying these processes in situ, the research identifies novel TIPS configurations, generates transferable insights for Global South contexts, and informs UK policy on inclusive engagement with marginalised communities.
Expected outcomes
Strengthened UK–Thailand network with sustained engagement of new partners.
Co-authored SPRITE+ white paper identifying untapped research opportunities;
Joint media articles in the UK and Thai outlets; and
Two international conference presentations, journal article draft, and a detailed research
roadmap for a follow-on grant proposal (e.g., ESRC/UKRI).