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One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Understanding the shifting dynamics of BoP clients’ demand for financial services
As the need to better serve BoP markets has become a business imperative, both the context and our knowledge about low-income consumers’ use of financial services have changed. For that reason, Monique Cohen argues, we need an approach to customer service and product development that recognizes customers’ different - and evolving - financial needs.
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Tanzania: CRDB, European Bank Sign Landmark Sh43 Billion Deal to Support Small Businesses
CRDB Bank and European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed a landmark 20 million Euros (about Sh 43 billion) agreement to support small scale businesses.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- microfinance
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Germany’s GIZ looks to break Islamic microfinance shortfall
A series of German-funded studies and pilot projects aims to bridge the gap between Islamic finance and microcredit, to the benefit of communities in developing countries which remain on the fringes of the financial industry.
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Red Flags: Over-indebtedness is the yang to microcredit’s yin
While working to understand the experiences of clients suffering from severe over-indebtedness in the U.S., EA Consultants began to consider patterns that have emerged in lesser-developed countries. Barbara Magnoni, EA Consultants’ president, discusses their research and its implications for microfinance.
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- Education
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Could reforms unlock Mexico’s “huge” microfinance potential?
Mexico's financial reforms could help the country's microfinance industry fulfill its "huge potential" for growth, rating agency S&P said in a report.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
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Improving Everyday Financial Decisions: Brief, specific and targeted education could help the poor make better choices
In Uganda, nearly half of surveyed adults were unable to correctly answer a basic question about interest rates, according to a recent study. What is the best way to address this kind of financial capability gap? Research from IPA and others suggests some mechanisms through which financial education might be delivered in Uganda and around the world.
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- Education
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OPINION: Twenty years of making microfinance, or whatever you want to call it, work
Today in Seattle, an organization called Global Partnerships celebrates two decades of helping people rise up out of poverty through a variety of initiatives all aimed at empowering the poor – by helping smallholder farmers, improving health, encouraging the use of “green” technologies and through microfinance.
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‘Independence from Credit’: Pro Mujer co-founder Carmen Velasco discusses self-help groups, and how much profit is too much in microfinance
As a pioneer of microfinance in Latin America, Pro Mujer co-founder Carmen Velasco has had a front-row seat for the sector’s tumultuous evolution over the past two decades. In this video Q&A, Part Two in our series on The Future of Microfinance, she discusses the need for MFIs to help clients move beyond credit - and how self-help savings groups could make some microcredit providers obsolete.
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