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Jan 2014
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Archives:
Oberthur Platform Fuels Myanmar Mobile Money Launch
January, 31 2014
Myanmar - Myanmar Mobile Money and its consulting partner Mobilemate Telecommunication have launched mobile money services in Myanmar using the MoreMagic m:Wallet platform developed by France's Oberthur Technologies ...
Philippines Now a Model of Microinsurance Promotion in Asia
January, 31 2014
Philippines - The Philippines emerged on top of emerging economies in Asia in terms of microinsurance promotion, insuring 20.4 percent of its population, or 19.95 million Filipinos, by the end of 2013. ...
May the Force Be With You: Converging Innovations Will Empower Entrepreneurs in the Developing World
January, 31 2014
Global - Many of the critical economic issues of our time were front and center at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. But too many of the conversations overlooked what's happening in the bustling slums and remote villages of the developing world ...
Government-promoted Rs 5,000 Crore India Inclusive Innovation Fund Confronts Major Challenges
January, 30 2014
New Delhi, India - Almost two years in the making, the Rs 5,000 crore India Inclusive Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund promoted by the government, finally had its launch on Monday. ...
MFX Solutions Supports $500 Million in Local Currency Loans to Micro-entrepreneurs
January, 29 2014
Global - Today MFX Solutions announced that it has hedged the risk on over $500 million in microfinance loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries since 2010 ...
Will Attfield and Michelle Kaffenberger, InterMedia: A Mixed Bag in Kenya
January, 28 2014
Kenya - Relatively fewer rural residents, those below the poverty line, and females use M-Shwari and Lipa na M-PESA than do their urban, above the poverty line and male counterparts ...
Private Sector Stepping Up Leadership in Financial Inclusion
January, 28 2014
Global - Conventional financial services and institutions do not reach half of the world’s working-age adults. This is a massive market failure, because the underlying demand is there. ...
EFSE Grants Senior Loan to Azerbaijani AccessBank
January, 28 2014
Azerbaijan - The European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) has granted a USD 15 million senior loan facility to AccessBank in Azerbaijan ...
India: Tiny Loans Are Big Business Once Again
January, 28 2014
India - The resurgent microlending sector has a new profile. With microlenders in Andhra Pradesh still wrestling with suspicious government regulators, the eastern state of West Bengal and southern state of Tamil Nadu are now the biggest microloan markets ...
Acleda to Expand in Myanmar and Laos
January, 27 2014
Cambodia - Acleda bank’s foreign operations in Laos and Myanmar performed well in 2013, and as a result, expansion plans are in the works, according to a senior executive ...
MasterCard, IDB Sign Agreement to Promote Economic Inclusion in Latin America
January, 26 2014
Latin America and the Caribbean - The five-year public-private partnership is intended to enhance access to information and promote the transition to electronic payment services in the region ...
Uganda Gets First Women Bank
January, 26 2014
Uganda - Finance Trust Bank is the first bank wholly established by enterprising women ...
New Cross-border Payment System Marks New Step Towards Financial Integration in East Africa
January, 24 2014
East Africa - Three members of the East African Community (EAC) - Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania - have now linked their Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems through the East African Cross Border Payment System (EAPS) ...
West Africa: AGF, Diamond Bank in $25m Microfinance Deal
January, 22 2014
Africa - African Guarantee Fund (AGF) has entered into an agreement with Diamond Bank to support the lender’s microcredit to small businesses in the region to the tune of $25 Million ...
Alex Counts: The Implications of Scarcity for Microfinance
January, 22 2014
Global - Just as increasing use of a “gender lens” has transformed thinking about and the practice of international development in recent decades, so too can behavioral economics in the near future ...
India: Financial Inclusion Push May Mean Bank Licence With Less Capital
January, 22 2014
India - Those who did not apply for regular banking licences and those who withdrew the applications due to stringent screening, capital, compliance and rural branching requirements may have reason to cheer ...
LeapFrog Invests in Ghana Pension Firm Petra Trust
January, 20 2014
Ghana - Leapfrog Investments, a specialist investor in microinsurance in Africa and Asia, has invested in one of Ghana’s largest pension-trustee companies in expectation of the market growing four-fold in the next four years ...
World Bank Project in Egypt Provides Loans for Micro and Small Businesses
January, 18 2014
Egypt - While stimulating growth and generating employment opportunities, the project has also been successful in reaching people and communities that lack access to finance. ...
Success of Microfinance Project Sees Women Benefiting as Malawi Economy Stabilises
January, 17 2014
Malawi - “We saw the need for microfinance structures in rural Malawi because of the absence of local banks, so we train people here how to set up and manage the groups. They now have access to money for things like paying school fees or investing in their farms.” ...
United States: Calvert Foundation and MicroVest Capital Management Announce Partnership for Microfinance Investments
January, 16 2014
United States - Calvert Foundation and MicroVest today announced a partnership to manage Calvert Foundation’s investments in the microfinance sector ...
Crowdfunding, Smartphones and Bitcoin: Seven Financial Innovation Questions That Could Shape 2014
January, 14 2014
Global - 2013 was a momentous – perhaps even an historic – year for financial innovation and inclusion, and it has left us primed for a fascinating 2014. Here are seven questions raised by some of 2013’s biggest developments that could resonate in the coming year and beyond ...
Indonesia: Bank Rakyat - Major Micro Player
January, 14 2014
Indonedia - Microfinance market continues to grow at a healthy clip in Indonesia ...
India’s Compulsory CSR: Should Contributions to Impact Investment Funds be Included to Increase Shared Value?
January, 14 2014
India - The recent CSR clause in the Indian Companies Act 2013 can be considered a trail-blazer in sustainable development ...
India: SKS Regains Investors' Confidence
January, 14 2014
India - At a time when most micro-lenders in Andhra Pradesh are struggling to survive, SKS Microfinance appears to have weathered the crisis ...
Ghana: BoG to Cap Microfinance Licences
January, 14 2014
Ghana - The surge in the number of microfinance companies in the country may soon be halted as the Bank of Ghana (BoG) plans to put a ceiling on the number of licences to be issued for the industry ...
C.Burns & J. Dolan, USAID: Beyond M-Pesa, Kenya's Market Slow to Scale Mobile Solutions
January, 14 2014
Kenya - Is Kenya as successful as we have heard? And is the tech revolution truly reaching Kenya’s base-of-the-pyramid consumers — those living under $2.50 per day ...
India: Utkarsh - The Loan Crusader
January, 14 2014
India - With an eye on financial inclusion, Utkarsh has helped enterprises that are too big for microfinance institutions and too small for banks. ...
How Can Finance Influence Productivity of Agricultural Firms?
January, 13 2014
Global - Summing up, evidence suggests that productivity in the agricultural sector can benefit from better access to financial instruments tailored to the needs of farmers and agribusinesses ...
International Funding for Financial Inclusion Climbs to $29 Billion in 2012 - Survey
January, 10 2014
Global - Global spending on financial inclusion increased by an estimated 12 percent in 2012, totaling $29 billion, according to a survey by a World Bank financial inclusion think tank ...
Geeta Goel: Impact Investing - Making the Case for Low-margin, High Social Return Investments
January, 09 2014
Global - The takeaway for the impact investment community is simple: We should actively support sustainable, high-impact ventures, even if they don’t offer the promise of financial returns that are high enough to attract commercial capital. That’s a key part of our mandate as impact investors ...
Isobel Coleman: Expanding Financial Access and Education
January, 09 2014
Global - Indeed, the expansion of efficient and effective saving mechanisms and other financial services such as insurance is one of today’s most exciting developments in the effort to tackle poverty ...
Financial Inclusion: Is The Next Big Thing One Electronic Payment Away?
January, 06 2014
Global - With world markets growing and technology and travel pulling us all closer together in an economic patchwork, too many people are sitting on the sidelines, idle. Most often, those on the sidelines are young people, women and families in extreme poverty. They are the financially excluded ...
Peru Increases Financial Inclusion Rate to 33% in 2013
January, 06 2014
Peru - The financial inclusion rate in Peru is expected to have climbed to 33 percent at end-2013, reaching a 2 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the ESAN Graduate School of Business. ...
India: Tiny Loans for Tiny Homes
January, 04 2014
India - While the housing loans don’t generate income for the borrower in the way a micro business would, they are just as crucial for low-income families seeking upward mobility. ...
10 Things You May Not Know About Postal Networks
January, 03 2014
Global - Many of us know post offices around the world as places to send mail, but we also have this impression that these are “old school” state-run institutions without much innovation. ...
Researchers Analyse Growth Potential in African Bank Loans
January, 03 2014
Africa - In Africa, small women-owned business owners find it easier to obtain loans than their male counterparts ...

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