Notice
The 'Industry Information' and 'Fund Information' modules previously included with the 'Research Accounts' are moving to Tameo Analytics, managed by Tameo.
You can register here to be notified of the launch of the Tameo Analytics platform.
From mid-September 2022, this information will no longer be available on syminvest.com.

News

 Print
Jul 2018
NewsWatch:
more This page will stop being updated shortly. You can subscribe to Tameo’s NewsWatch here to keep yourself informed about recent industry happenings. Learn more about Tameo.
- Subscribe to the Symbiotics RSS industry news feed -

Archives:
India: Microcredit Witnesses 40% Year-on-Year Growth for the Last Few Months
July, 31 2018
India - According RBI data, at the end of May, 2018, the loan outstanding in microcredit segment was close to Rs 197 bn, against Rs 142 bn in May, 2017, representing a growth of about 38% ...
Philippines: DOF Prods MSMEs to Tap Emerging Fintech Tools for Economic Inclusion
July, 31 2018
Philippines - The Department of Finance (DOF) is urging micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to utilize electronic commerce (e-commerce) more, as the Duterte administration increases its efforts to put in place financial- technology (fintech) tools to foster economic inclusion in the country ...
Experian Leads USD 28 Mln Investment to Drive Financial Inclusion Across Southeast Asia
July, 30 2018
Southeast Asia - Financial institutions will be able to deploy demand generation, analytics and digital on-boarding technologies directly via C88, powered by Experian ...
Investing in Healthcare: A Key to Breaking the Cycle of Poverty
July, 29 2018
Global - The report claims that the current poor state of healthcare systems worldwide is increasing the incidence of illness and proportion of health costs for all governments. Investing in healthcare hence becomes an important part of achieving the goal ...
Egypt Gets Most of IFC’s Record $2.4b Financing for Mena
July, 28 2018
Global - The World Bank’s member financed projects worth $1.3b in Egypt, making it 46% of the total investments made in the Middle East ...
ADB to Support Uzbekistan's Agro Industry, Ensure Food Security
July, 27 2018
Uzbekistan - “Under Strategy 2030, we will combine finance, knowledge, and partnerships to sustain our efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and expand our vision towards a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable region. ...
A. Malkani, DFS, Karandaaz: Pakistan - Financial Inclusion
July, 27 2018
Pakistan - Understanding more about the day-to-day lives of the poor and the coping mechanisms and strategies they employ to survive could help us create a system that caters to them and develop a little more empathy in the process. ...
Growing Mobile Penetration Creates Opportunities for Disruptive Technologies in Ghana
July, 27 2018
Ghana - Having achieved more than 100% mobile penetration puts Ghana well ahead of the overall average in Sub-Saharan Africa, set to reach 100% in 2021, according to the 2016 Ericsson Mobility Report ...
Sri Lanka: Govt. Writes Off Microfinance Debt
July, 25 2018
Sri Lanka - Cabinet yesterday approved a Cabinet paper presented by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera to write off non-consumption loans up to Rs. 100,000 given to women by all registered finance companies in a dozen districts and introduced an interest rate cap of 30% per annum on all future loans given by microfinance companies ...
2017 Global Findex: Behind the Numbers on Bangladesh
July, 24 2018
Bangladesh - On the face of it, the 2017 Global Findex shows that Bangladesh has made great strides toward financial inclusion since the previous Findex was released in 2014. ...
Sri Lanka: Cabinet Paper Capping Microfinance Interest Rates to Be Presented Today
July, 24 2018
Sri Lanka - Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera will present a Cabinet paper today that would limit interest rates of microfinance loans to 30% as the latest effort by the Government to reduce indebtedness in the country. ...
ComBank Expands Footprint in Myanmar with Microfinance Firm
July, 23 2018
Myanmar - CBC Myanmar will offer group loans and individual loans to customers who require microfinance facilities and plans to accept savings deposits from the general public with the approval of the regulator ...
Asia-Pacific May Meet Only One Out of 17 SDGs by 2030, Warns UN Official
July, 22 2018
Global - The Asia-Pacific region is on track to meet only one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, a senior UN official has warned, underscoring that the global success in achieving the 2030 development agenda is "highly reliant" on India's performance ...
D. Bajas, Inbound Sales Account Manager, First Circle: Fintech Gets the Ball Rolling
July, 21 2018
Philippines - As a director of a major corporation, she learned that fintech has been a buzzword recently and there are countless technological advancements for the selection process of finding the right partner which has been very hard for her ...
IFC, Azerbaijan to Expand Digital Financial Services in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with Funding from Switzerland’s SECO
July, 20 2018
Azerbaijan - The goal is to develop mobile money infrastructure by establishing data processing centers and bringing in mobile network operators, thus allowing rural residents to use mobile phones to perform financial services such as bill payments and money transfers. By 2020, IFC seeks to involve 2,400 mobile operator agents and 700,000 users to perform USD 14 million in cashless transactions ...
New RIAA Report: Impact Investment Delivering for our Environment and Communities
July, 19 2018
Global - The significant role capital plays in shaping our society and environment – both positively and negatively – is in focus more than ever before, writes Simon O’Connor, CEO of the Responsible Investment Association Australasia ...
Moving from Financial Access to Health
July, 19 2018
Global - As we move forward, however, we must concentrate on what comes next: Shifting our focus from creating access to improving financial outcomes for the hundreds of millions who have been excluded until now; making sure that people can use financial instruments to better weather economic shocks and invest in health, education, or in a business ...
G. Clarke, Freelance Journalist: Microfinance Reaps Rewards for Offline Communities in Africa
July, 18 2018
Global - With current markets in Africa and Asia, Oradian is currently conducting market insight into the most remote areas and expanding the technology to help ...
D. Collins, CEO, BFA: Ghana - The Economic Lives of Sex Workers: Can Financial Inclusion Offer Women a Path Out of the Sex Trade?
July, 17 2018
Ghana - Rosa’s story suggests the need to focus on the “inclusion” aspect of the financial inclusion movement even more than we do today. ...
India's Banking Revolution Has Left Its Villagers Behind
July, 17 2018
India - While India gained about 25,000 bank branches and 45,000 ATMs in the four years to March 2018, growth has not kept up with a surge in new customers ...
Task Force to Examine Feasibility of $1 Bn Fund for Social, Environmental Drive in Lat America
July, 17 2018
Latin American - The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment today announced the launch of a task force to determine the feasibility of USD 1 billion fund to drive social and environmental impact in 20 countries across Central and South America ...
Emerging Markets: See the Bigger Picture
July, 17 2018
Global - Investors could be wrong to let currency devaluations in emerging markets colour their picture of the wider asset class, finds Fiona Rintoul ...
Achieving Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion
July, 16 2018
Nigeria - Access to financial services such as banking, lending services, micro-financing, and economic resources, i.e., financial inclusion have long been heralded as a way to reduce poverty ...
India’s Social Revolution
July, 16 2018
India - India’s digital leap – consisting of a combination of Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, rising mobile penetration and a Goods and Services Tax regime – is generating deep social impact, promising reduced income inequality, increased financial inclusion, better quality of life, and higher agricultural productivity ...
Microfinance Companies Advised to Embrace Technology
July, 14 2018
Ghana - Dr Settor Amediku, the Head of Payment System Department of Bank of Ghana has urged microfinance companies to use technology to provide quality customer services ...
Why Run Before You Can Walk? Digital Data Assets for SME Lending
July, 13 2018
Global - Designing and implementing a digital strategy for SME lending and deciding what data assets to utilise in doing so is truly staggering ...
WB to Pilot Cashless Payments Project in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic
July, 13 2018
Azerbaijan - The creation of the new cashless payment infrastructure will allow citizens to use their mobile phones for financial operations, including paying bills and transferring money. ...
Microfinance Could Help African Cities Solve Housing Crisis: Experts
July, 12 2018
Global - Granting small loans to help low earners in Africa’s rapidly growing cities build their own homes could help solve a looming housing crisis, experts said on Thursday ...
Pakistan: Micro-Entrepreneurship Changing Lives of Poor
July, 12 2018
Pakistan - Starting his business with only2-3 stitching machines and now runs a centre with more than 100 machines, Naseem’s journey has been inspirational. ...
Blockchain and Islamic Banking Are Working Together, and Everyone Stands to Benefit
July, 11 2018
Global - More and more banks in the Islamic world — a community of nearly 2 billion people worldwide — are adopting blockchain technology and cryptocurrency ...
Alternate Lending Platforms Are Fixing India's Financial Inclusion Problem, Becoming Enablers for SME Funding
July, 11 2018
India - Today, India's MSMEs and their business owners are finding new-age digital startups and alternate lending platforms to be the most effective institution to disperse credit. ...
Why Micro-Lending Is Branching out in 2018
July, 10 2018
Global - Financial technology seems to be leading the startup charge, representing 40 percent of the largest 10 deals of the year so far, collectively worth $100 million ...
An Admirable Filipina
July, 09 2018
Philippines - Ruth Callanta is president of the Center for Community Transformation (CCT), a nongovernment organization (NGO) that is transforming the lives of impoverished families. Nearly a million poor Filipinos were beneficiaries of services extended by CCT in 2017 alone. ...
Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Falls Below 2012 Level - CBN
July, 08 2018
Nigeria - The Central Bank of Nigeria has said financial inclusion in the country is now below the 2012 level as it fell to 58.4 per cent in 2016 ...
India: Federal Bank Vying to Buy MFI Madura Microfinance
July, 07 2018
India - Federal Bank has initiated talks to acquire Madura Microfinance. The price that the bank is said to have quoted for the MFI is around Rs 700 crore ...
Dubai To Serve as Regional Digital Financial Inclusion Hub for Middle East, Africa and South Asia
July, 06 2018
Dubai - The UAE is ideally positioned to serve as the ‘beating heart’ of a regional innovation hub; according to a new report published by Oliver Wyman in collaboration with Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the leading international financial hub in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region ...
Zambia: World Bank Approves $14.6 Million Climate Fund
July, 06 2018
Zambia - The World Bank has approved financing of US$14.6 million under the Climate Investment Funds to enable Zambia to link smallholder farmers affected by climate change to markets ...
A Two-day Crash in Zimbabwe’s Mobile Money System Shows the Vulnerabilities of Going Cashless
July, 05 2018
Zimbabwe - Although mobile money has become the leading transaction platform in Zimbabwe, its weaknesses came into focus this week after the dominant EcoCash network in Zimbabwe went down for two days, and left many consumer businesses floundering in an already difficult economy ...
India: Fusion Microfinance Reduces Interest Rate to 23% for Existing Customers
July, 04 2018
India - The rate of interest for their existing customers have been reduced by 140 basis points to 23% from 24.4% earlier.New customers will be able to avail loans at 23.5% now instead of previous 24.6% rate ...
Nigeria: Social Security - Federal Government Takes Interest-free Microcredit Loans to Grassroots
July, 04 2018
Nigeria - The President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration introduced the Government Empowerment and Enterprise Programme (GEEP). The GEEP is one of the Social Intervention Programmes (SIPs), designed to offer zero interest rate loans to over 1.2 million beneficiaries at the grassroots ...
The SDGs: An Ethical Compass for Investors
July, 03 2018
Global - The UN Sustainable Development Goals incorporate a strong call to action for the private sector to end poverty, combat climate change and promote sustainable economic growth, writes RIAA's Carly Hammond ...
World’s First ‘Integrity Rating’ Agency Launched
July, 02 2018
Gloabl - In a twist on the credit ratings of Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s, Sigma Ratings, co-founded by former US Treasury official Stuart Jones and lawyer Gabrielle Haddad, is this month set to publish its first batch of ratings, focused on the conduct of 500 financial groups in 16 emerging markets, from Saudi Arabia to Panama ...
Dubai Set to Serve as Regional Digital Financial Inclusion Hub for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
July, 02 2018
Global - Titled “The Case for an Innovation Hub to Facilitate MEASA Financial Inclusion”, the report reveals how Dubai is strategically positioned to facilitate development of digitally enabled financial solutions for the region ...

Research Analysis Tools

The fund indexes, institution benchmarks and other market information displayed here are all Symbiotics designed analysis tools, created in-house by our analysts and experts. Symbiotics has one of the oldest track records in microfinance investment analysis dating back to the late 1990s; its indexes and benchmarks have been regularly used as markers by investors, asset managers, financial institutions and practitioners. These, as well as several other research products, are available through the Research Account. Click on the link below to find out more.

Learn More