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M. Qazi, Author: India - A Simple Recipe for Financial Inclusion
August, 31 2017
India - Today, digital technology and mobile phones offer an unprecedented opportunity to connect poor people to services such as savings, loans, insurance and payments. But owning a phone or even opening a digital account does not ensure the account is used. Two-thirds of world's 299 million mobile money accounts are dormant. India remains among the most cash-intensive economies in the world, with a cash-to-gross domestic product ratio of 12 per cent. Around 97 per cent of all transactions in the country are in cash, which explains why India remains among nations with lowest access to digital payments
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Pakistan: Microcredit Climbs 47 Percent to Rs132 Billion in 2016
August, 31 2017
Pakistan - Microfinance sector continued to grow at a double-digit rate during the last year as its loan portfolio surged 47 percent to Rs132 billion, an industry report said.
Number of active borrowers increased 16 percent to 4.2 million during the last year. Rural segment accounted for 54 percent of total active borrowers. Around 88 percent is unsecured lending
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Africa: Fintech Can Cut Remittance Costs to a Fraction
August, 30 2017
Africa - Fintech enables customers to access money from local agents, such as small shops and post offices. There are now over 4.3m registered mobile money agents on the continent. The scale of such networks makes them well designed for micro-lending and micro-insurance. By comparison, the biggest traditional money transfer provider, Western Union, has 500,000 locations in the entire world
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C. Martin, U.S. Global Development Lab, USAID: Do Farmers Really Want to Be Paid in Mobile Money?
August, 30 2017
Global - Efforts are currently underway in many countries to digitize payments along the agricultural value chain. This is due to both the growing evidence that access to a digital account increases household resilience and the potential for mobile money to increase farmers’ access to financing (think loans for inputs) and markets (think connections to more buyers and the ability to lock in better prices)
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E. Poisson, Executive Director, Convergences: Advocating For a Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, Zero Poverty World
August, 30 2017
Global - Exclusion, poverty and climate change are not separate issues; they are an accumulation of issues whose effects come at the expense of countries and the most disadvantaged populations. They must be addressed comprehensively and in an integrated manner. Beyond international decision makers, we all — as citizens, local decision makers, producers, consumers — must work, without partitioning or prejudice, to construct of a world without exclusion, without carbon and without poverty
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How Scientists Can Help Make the Sustainable Development Goals a Reality
August, 29 2017
Global - Researchers and policymakers all need to work across sectors. So, for example, health scientists need to work with scientists in other areas, as well as with non-health policymakers. And health policymakers working in cities need to work with researchers and other policymakers in housing, transport, food and trade.
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Guest Author: We Are Not Ghouls – Fight Microcredit’s Myths
August, 29 2017
Global - When one wants to get a big loan, to buy a car for example, no one will think that a bank is doing something bad and unethical by giving him a loan. But if someone needs to buy a microwave, people might think that this microcredit was given to him with a very bad intention. Why does this happen? Why do all these myths about the microfinance business still exist – we asked Anton Dzyatkovsky, co-owner of MicroMoney, a company which specializes in microfinance in Asia, to help us understand why there are so many myths and superstitions about small loans. This is what he told us
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CBN Reveals How Nigerians Can Own a New Home, Pay Within 25 Years
August, 28 2017
Nigeria - The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is spearheading a new scheme targeted at providing improved access to housing finance to aspiring homeowners.
The initiative would have a tenor of 15 years to 25 years, depending on the age of the borrower, their income and desired tenor and would be available to eligible applicants with insufficient or no equity contribution
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India: Over 60% of MFIs Adopt Cashless Disbursement - MFIN
August, 28 2017
India - The report said the rise in MFIs' cashless payment models are largely attributed to benefits of risk mitigation and increased operational efficiency that includes improved cash management practises, increased safety and staff productivity.
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TriLinc Global Impact Fund Makes Important Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa
August, 28 2017
Sub-Saharan Africa - TriLinc Global Impact Fund has announced this week that it has approved an additional US$37.5mn in term loan and trade finance facilities to companies operating in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, bringing total financing commitments as of 31 July 2017 to US$356.4mn for business expansion and socioeconomic development through its holdings in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia
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Ghana: Reduce Capital Limits for MFIs in Rural Areas – AMFC
August, 26 2017
Ghana - The Association of Micro Finance Companies (AMFC) has appealed to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to re-categorize Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) in the country to reduce the proposed capital requirement for micro finance companies in rural areas
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Deepening Ghana’s Financial Inclusion the Cooperative Way
August, 26 2017
Ghana - The takeover of UT Bank and Capital Bank by GCB Bank came as a shock to some members of the banking community, making headlines in the newspapers of August 14 that reverberated beyond Ghana, but came as no surprise to key players in the local banking fraternity
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Marginalized Returns - Impact Investing Has Been Seduced by a False Narrative of Combining Social Impact with Financial Gains
August, 25 2017
Global - Here is the reality: The most impactful and successful of social enterprises in emerging economies—even in developed countries—are likely to generate only low-single-digit financial returns. This is hardly surprising. They bear not only the same risks faced by all startup enterprises but also the challenge of testing, adapting, and refining business models appropriate to marginalized communities—who typically have previously either lacked access to the new product or service, or had it provided for free. Furthermore, such enterprises make business decisions—on prices, wages, and hiring—in a way that maximizes long-term social benefit against short-term financial gain
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Behind Credit Suisse’s Foray Into Microlending to the Global Poor
August, 24 2017
Global - “We run our microfinance and impact investing work as a business that’s financially sustainable to us and clients; they are getting a financial return,” says Laura Hemrika, global head of corporate citizenship and foundations at Credit Suisse.
Microfinance 2.0, as she calls it, involved individual loans, savings products and micro-insurance, not just for small businesses, but for farms, schools and individuals paying for education, health care or a home as well, often taking advantage of new technology
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Dr. E. Osuji, Teacher at Pan-Atlantic University: The Challenge and Value of Self-Regulation in Microfinance
August, 23 2017
Global - Financial stability is a critical requirement for economic, and by extension, socio-political stability. Quite often, the implementation of the rules, regulations and strategies to effect this stability gets criticised by operators, especially bankers and other stakeholders, as very stifling. However, those who follow developments around the world and, in particular, the crisis that occurred in the United States, triggered by subprime mortgages, would probably be more sympathetic to and less critical of the so-called over-regulation of the financial system
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Nigeria: Microfinance Banks and the VAT Legislation - Is There a Case for Exemption?
August, 22 2017
Global - The primary aim of new National Tax Policy is to introduce new strategies that will enable government achieve its objectives of creating an enabling environment for businesses to thrive while simplifying the tax system. This underlying principle is expected to be applied in the purposive interpretation of ambiguous provisions of the tax laws
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Ghana: Government Working Assiduously to Reduce Poverty
August, 20 2017
Ghana - The government is working assiduously to reduce poverty and restore dignity to the
citizenry through the 2017 budget and subsequent ones, the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, has said.
He said the key to achieving this agenda is to ensure exclusive growth by addressing the challenges of the sectors which host the poor (in this case, crop farmers) and sharing the dividends of the economic growth poles across the other sectors of the economy
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Regulatory Sandboxes: Potential for Financial Inclusion?
August, 17 2017
Global - With a few exceptions, the countries with regulatory sandboxes designed them to accommodate or even spur FinTech innovations; typically, they are not designed to focus explicitly on financial inclusion. This raises the question: Could regulatory sandboxes be useful in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) to advance FinTech innovations designed to benefit unserved and underserved customers
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Private Equity Investors Can Help Africa to Feed Itself
August, 16 2017
Global - For investors, returns from the farming industry can be enhanced through investment and implementation of modern farming techniques.
In turn, successful agribusiness investments stimulate growth through the access to new markets and the development of a vertically integrated supply chain in the form of food processing, packaging and assembly, transportation, distribution and retailing
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Why FAs Are Still Reluctant to Jump on ESG Bandwagon
August, 16 2017
Global - A wave of mutual funds and ETFs with socially responsible investing themes keep coming to market. By investment researcher Morningstar’s latest count, 200-plus mutual funds and ETFs are now available featuring some sort of “sustainable” investment strategy.
Asset managers and major brokerages think there’s big money to be made shilling these funds to advisors, with the likes of BlackRock, Bank of America and UBS highlighting the growing acceptance and mainstream popularity of SRI and “impact investing” strategies
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Fostering Financial Inclusion and Women Entrepreneurship in Pakistan
August, 16 2017
Pakistan - Efforts are beingmade to minimize the gender disparity level in the country. In this regard, Karandaaz Pakistan in collaboration with Department for International Development (UKAid) has launched a program, Innovation Challenge Fund, focused on supporting female entrepreneurs in Pakistan
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Gates Foundation to Improve Entreprise Productivity in Tanzania
August, 16 2017
Tanzania - A programme to improve the livelihoods and entreprise productivity across Tanzania has been launched by Bill Gates.
The co-founder of Microsoft landed in Dar es Salaam to support Tanzania’s financial inclusion agenda. The project has been launched by Gates and other joining leaders from government, financial service providers, mobile network operators and digital financial service providers
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Loans for Solar Systems Make Power Affordable in Rural Kenya
August, 15 2017
Kenya - The system is designed by d.light so that as each loan installment is paid, the customer receives an activation code that allows them to use the system for the coming month.
If the customer defaults on a payment, the system deactivates until the money is paid.
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Dangote to Invest $450m on Agriculture in Niger
August, 15 2017
Niger - Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the President, Dangote Group on Monday disclosed that the company would invest $450million in agriculture development in Niger State over the next three years
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Egypt: Beltone Financial to Launch $1bln Fixed Income Fund
August, 14 2017
Egypt - Egyptian financial services group Beltone Financial will launch a $1 billion investment fund in fixed income instruments in September, its chief executive officer told Reuters on Monday.
The investment bank aims to raise $150 million to $200 million in the fund's first phase, Bassem Azzab said in a telephone interview. The fund will seek to attract Gulf and European investors as well as those in the United States.
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4th Financial Institution in Tajikistan Joins EBRD Climate Credit Line
August, 14 2017
Tajikistan - Climadapt, a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) US $10 million pilot program for promoting adaptation to climate change, has passed a milestone with the addition of a new partner financial institution in Tajikistan, MDO Arvand, the EBRD press office reports
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Will Digital Wallets Succeed in Creating a Cashless Cambodia?
August, 09 2017
Cambodia - In recent years, Cambodia has seen financial technology, or fintech, startups blossom, with entrepreneurs drawn to the sector by the country’s young, smartphone-obsessed and largely unbanked population. But while the country is ripe for financial innovation, those wishing to disrupt the Kingdom’s financial sector face a tall order: they must convince customers to jump from using physical cash to adopting relatively advanced mobile phone applications.
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Blockchain to Accelerate Impact Investing Progress Globally
August, 08 2017
Global - The first cooperative banking system enabled by blockchain technology is about to disrupt the impact investing sector globally and for hundreds of millions of grassroots entrepreneurs worldwide.
The state of impact investing today has made significant progress since the original creation of the eight United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 - ultimately aiming to cut the extreme poverty rate across the globe by half
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Indonesia: Islamic Cooperatives Can Help Alleviate Poverty
August, 08 2017
Indonesia - The expected function of banks in distributing idle funds to productive economic activity has yet to empower the poor. A survey by OJK noted that in 2016, Islamic or sharia financial inclusion and are still low, although their development is relatively fast in Indonesia. Thus, we should seek a second-best solution in promoting a just wealth distribution. The Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT) can be one solution in empowering the poor. Under the Cooperatives and Small-Medium Enterprises Ministry, BMT is acknowledged as an institution in the form of cooperative that is influenced by and is operated in accordance with Islamic principles
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Opinion: Kenya's Decade of Political and Financial Inclusion
August, 08 2017
Kenya - Today, Kenya heads to the polls to select its next government. Past election campaigns in Kenya have been fraught with tension. This one is no different. Raila Odinga, the challenger to President Uhuru Kenyatta and a repeat runner-up for the presidency, has waged a heated effort to unseat the incumbent. He has also indicated that perceived foul play, similar to what allegedly occurred in the tumultuous 2007 election, could result in mass protests
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Jordanians Still Suffer from Low Financial Inclusion
August, 08 2017
Jordan - The JSF has released a study titled “On the Financial Inclusion in Jordan: In a Nutshell” outlining people’s access to financial services in the Kingdom and recommendations to improve the current situation, a JSF statement said
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Indonesia: UangTeman Raises US$12mil Oversubscribed Series A Round
August, 08 2017
Indonesia - “We are very excited about partnering with the outstanding team at UangTeman in Indonesia to serve the large unbanked population. The emerging middle class in Indonesia is under-served by mainstream financial institutions, and UangTeman has a greenfield to build a large sustainable business. I visited Indonesia in June this year, and was impressed by how fast Indonesia is evolving in fintech, and how important UangTeman will be in Indonesia's financial development,” says Draper Associates founder & managing partner Tim Draper
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Pakistan: Gearing Up FinTech for Wider Financial Inclusion
August, 07 2017
Pakistan - Financial technology start-ups (FinTechs) are transforming the financial services industry globally and more and more banks are embracing this platform in order to devise more innovative solutions. The trend is now catching on in Pakistan
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IDB Offers Financing to 70MW Campo Palomas Wind Farm in Uruguay
August, 07 2017
Uruguay - The Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), the private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) has closed a 19.5 years amortising B-bond for $135.8m to finance operations of the 70MW Campo Palomas wind farm in Uruguay
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Snapshots of Myanmar's flourishing microfinance market
August, 06 2017
Myanmar - Low-income female entrepreneurs are using small loans to build a better future. Ever since Myanmar began transitioning to civilian rule in 2011 and opening up its borders, investor money and advanced technology has been flooding in. One of the big changes accompanying this wave has been the spread of microfinance, or loan services designed to help low-income families start businesses
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Why African Fintech Startups Are Becoming Even More Attractive for Investors
August, 06 2017
Global - If you follow the right accounts for young African tech entrepreneurs on Twitter, it can feel like there’s a never ending debate about who gets funding or not in Africa. Like many Twitter debates the 140 characters and even the endless threads don’t capture all nuance of the issue, but while many of those debates have grown, founders from one sector of the startup space have been more positive than most: fintech
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Frontier Markets Might Be Next to Emerge
August, 05 2017
Global - How long can it take for an economy to emerge? Arguably they already have emerged, says a London-based fund manager who invests in companies in nations with economies that are less mature than those aforementioned Asian countries
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India: Adar Poonawalla in Talks to Buy Micro Housing Finance
August, 03 2017
India - Billionaire Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of the world’s largest vaccine maker Serum Institute of India Ltd, is in talks to acquire Mumbai-based Micro Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (MHFC), as he seeks to enter the financial services space, two people aware of the development said.
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Transforming Microfinance Through Digital Technology in Malaysia
August, 03 2017
Malaysia - At the Global Symposium on Microfinance in Kuala Lumpur, jointly organized by the World Bank Group and Bank Negara Malaysia, more than 35 experts from financial service providers, tech companies and leaders in microfinance attended to reflect on the microfinance achievements of the last four decades, and to develop a better understanding of how Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) can be part of a digital financial system that is evolving through technology
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How Blockchain-Powered Platforms Promote Financial Inclusion in Developed Countries
August, 01 2017
Global - Achieving financial inclusion or inclusive financing has been a daunting task in major parts of the world. The World Bank Group, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recently launched a program that will accelerate digital financial inclusion in developing countries
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Innovations in Financial Inclusion: Delivering Capital to MSMEs and Growing Businesses in India
August, 01 2017
India - In short, MSMEs are a critical driver of growth of the Indian economy and key for employment generation in both urban and rural areas. It’s clear that MSMEs and mid-corporate firms, those with sizable annual revenues that straddle the middle market between the smaller companies and the billion-dollar giants, are all a key to India’s economic success. Timely access to capital acts as both a lifeline and a growth engine for these companies during their evolution
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Juvo Raises $40 Million to Bring Financial Inclusion to Emerging Markets
August, 01 2017
Global - San Francisco-based startup Juvo wants to help mobile users in emerging markets improve their financial standing by combining data and identity to provide micro-loans. It’s an ambitious goal, and to help achieve it, the company has raised $40 million in funding led by NEA and Wing Venture Capital
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