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The Front Lines of the Digital Revolution: Reasons for Hope and Caution as India Rides the Fintech Boom
India is now the world's second biggest fintech hub, trailing only the U.S. Its digital payments market is set to grow to US $500 billion by 2020, with its overall digital economy predicted to reach 30% of the country’s GDP by 2025. According to Moin Qazi, this ongoing fintech revolution offers a preview of what global banking may look like a generation from now, delivering vast benefits to both providers and customers. But it isn't free of downsides – for both traditional financial institutions losing their market share to tech-based entrants, and for customers navigating new risks.
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- Finance, Technology
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Finding the Right Balance: A Toolkit for Regulating Digital Financial Services in Emerging Markets
The number of financially excluded adults has dropped from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 1.7 billion in 2017, thanks largely to digital financial services (DFS). However, finding the right regulatory balance for these services is not easy: Too much regulation can undermine the business case for DFS, while too little can leave consumers exposed. Anton Didenko and Ross Buckley at the University of New South Wales discuss a recent paper that seeks to address these challenges through a comprehensive analytical framework – what they call the Regulatory Diagnostic Toolkit.
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- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Five Things We’ve Learned Creating Data Standards for Inclusive Fintech
It’s no secret that capital is flowing into fintech. In 2018, global fintech investments exceeded USD $100 billion. Yet this investment is highly concentrated among a relatively small group of companies. Blaine Stephens and Chrissy Martin Meier of MIX share five insights from a new research initiative based on 40 interviews with fintechs, investors and ecosystem actors, designed to drive capital to inclusive fintechs in hopes of reaching 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world.
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- Finance, Investing, Technology
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A Decade in, Why the Pay-As-You-Go Solar Sector is Maturing and Brightening
This month marks nine years since Jesse Moore and Nick Hughes first sketched out a plan for M-KOPA - one of the early leaders in the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar market. Since then, M-KOPA has installed PAYG solar systems in over 750,000 African homes, and now receives over 30 million customer micropayments per year, writes Moore. He estimates that PAYG solar will soon reach over 10 million customers and surpass a billion dollars in cumulative revenue – but he cautions that the industry should gird itself for a wave of consolidation as it embarks on its second decade.
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- Energy, Technology
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Why Data Ownership is a Bridge Across Digital Divides
Emerging markets have traditionally experienced “data poverty” – data that is inaccessible, and poorly captured, controlled and distributed. But big data sources are now serving as proxies for all kinds of information – on everything from GDP and growth to demographics and poverty. This represents a big opportunity for emerging markets to leapfrog the technical limitations faced by developed economies, writes Gavin Heaton of the company Hu-manity.co. He sees a day when lower-income citizens have the opportunity to profit from their data, rather than being subjugated by it.
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- Technology
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The Financial Inclusion Gender Gap is Wide. Which FinTechs Are Working to Narrow It?
Significantly more women than men around the world lack access to digital finance – and in some countries, the gender gap is actually getting worse. According to Alina Kaiser at DFS Lab, that's why her organization is bringing a gender focus to their own work. It's also why they're recognizing and rewarding the efforts of other organizations to tackle this gap, by launching the Female-Focused Fintech Prize. Kaiser discusses the problem and some potential solutions, and invites interested fintechs to apply for the prize – applications are open until May 15.
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- Finance, Technology
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Bringing the Tech Revolution to Health Care: New Report Provides First-Ever Snapshot of Global Digital Health Ecosystems
As the role of technology in health ecosystems grows, the global health sector needs a data-driven approach to measure and improve the status of digital health structures. That's the goal of the Global Digital Health Index (GDHI), an interactive digital resource that tracks, monitors and evaluates how health care providers use digital technology. Joanne Ke Edelman at the Global Development Incubator explores how data collected from 22 countries for GDHI’s inaugural “State of Digital Health” report provides the first-ever snapshot of digital health ecosystems throughout the world.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Can Superplatforms Transform Financial Inclusion in the Least Developed Countries? Emerging Insights from Nepal
Superplatforms like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Alibaba are at the forefront of technology in countries around the world. But can their model work down market? Using insights generated by homegrown superplatforms in Nepal, Keyzom Ngodup Massally and Audrey Misquith at UNCDF discuss their potential to build a new-generation financial sector in the least developed countries.
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- Finance, Technology