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China Tightens Regulation Over Mobile Payment Apps — What’s Next For Tencent and Ant Financial?
Now that digital wallets like Ant Financial’s Alipay and Tencent’s Ten Pay have become near ubiquitous in the country, where the market for mobile payment reached $5.5 trillion as people use them to pay for clothes, groceries, taxi fares and utility bills, the government wants to bring oversight up to speed by regulating them exactly like banks, said Oliver Rui, a professor of finance at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai (CEIBS).
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- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Kenyan operators prepare for mobile money interoperability tests
Kenya's telecommunication firms are expected to begin trialling mobile money transfers from one network to the other from January, reports Business Daily.
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- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- digital payments, fintech
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The countdown begins: Top fintech trends that India can expect in 2018
The year has pretty much offered what everyone expected. It has cemented the significance of the fintech sector in India. From increased momentum behind digital payments to product innovation in digital loan disbursement platforms, the entire sector is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the nation functions the way it does and achieves the two-digit growth rate that it has persistently been longing for.
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- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Announcing the Most Influential NextBillion Posts of 2017
As we welcome 2018, we'd like to pay a final tribute to the top posts of 2017. In their own way, each of these insightful pieces introduced a novel concept, approach or argument that captured our readers' attention – and in some cases, provoked their ire. Here are the winners of 2017's Most Influential Post Contest.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Investing
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Kenya’s fintech companies are innovating to bring small businesses into their fold
Mobile operators and electronic payment firms are focusing on the hundreds of thousands of small businesses in Kenya by introducing new products specifically aimed at paying for low-value card transactions with ease, speed, and convenience.
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- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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What was the Most Influential NextBillion Post of 2017? Vote for Your Favorite
“Fast away the old year passes.” That lyric from “Deck the Halls” always hits home this time of year – and in 2017, it resonates particularly strongly. Across the social sectors, the year often felt like a race against time (or against competing societal forces) and many of our most popular posts reflect that sense of urgency. Here are the most influential posts from the last twelve months, one from each month, in our sixth annual holiday contest. Vote early, vote often.
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Beyond ‘Send Money Home’: The Complex Gender Dynamics Behind Mobile Money Usage
In Kenya, gender doesn’t factor as strongly in accessing mobile money accounts as it does for formal sector accounts. This is surprising because in Africa women are less digitally connected than men. However, the networked nature of mobile money explains why more women adopt the technology. Susan Johnson writes that financial inclusion analysis and policy must factor in how women use their money, how it connects them to family and how financial services can facilitate this.
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- Finance, Technology
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Why the Crusade Against Cash Isn’t Clearly ‘Pro-Poor’ – UPDATED
Many assume that getting rid of cash in the name of financial inclusion would unequivocally be a good thing for the poor. Phil Mader says it's too early to say – and that cash might have insufficiently recognized advantages, including being free to use, anonymous and under public stewardship. And besides, he argues, if the mission is poverty alleviation, it’s not money’s physical form, but how it's distributed, that matters.
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- Technology