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Combining administrative data on credit, internet penetration and a land reform in Rwanda, this paper shows that the complementarity between technology and law can overcome financial frictions. Leveraging quasi-experimental variation in 3G availability from lightning strikes and incidental coverage, we show that mobile connectivity steers borrowers from microfinance to commercial banks and improves loan terms. These effects are partly due to the role of 3G internet in facilitating the acquisition of land titles from the reform, used as a collateral for bank loans and mortgages. We quantify that the collateral's availability mediates 35% of the overall effect of mobile internet on credit and 80% for collateralized loans.

Bank credit --- Banking --- Banks and Banking --- Banks and banking --- Banks --- Commercial banks --- Communications Equipment --- Computers --- Credit --- Currency crises --- Depository Institutions --- Diffusion Processes --- Economic & financial crises & disasters --- Economics of specific sectors --- Economics --- Economics: General --- Finance --- Finance: General --- Financial inclusion --- Financial institutions --- Financial Instruments --- Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy --- Financial markets --- Financial services industry --- Industries: Financial Services --- Informal sector --- Institutional Investors --- Loans --- Macroeconomics --- Micro Finance Institutions --- Microelectronics --- Mobile and Wireless Communications --- Mobile internet --- Monetary economics --- Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit: General --- Money and Monetary Policy --- Money --- Mortgages --- Non-bank Financial Institutions --- Pension Funds --- Technological Change: Choices and Consequences --- Technology --- Wap (wireless) technology --- Wireless Internet