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How India’s Non-Bank Financial Companies are Closing the MSME Credit Gap — And What Other Emerging Markets Can Learn from Their Success
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) make up around 90% of businesses and employ over half of the workforce globally, while generating up to 40% of GDP and creating 70% of formal jobs in emerging markets. Yet according to Sameer Nanda at Ugro Capital Limited, these businesses face an ongoing credit gap that, in India alone, amounts to an estimated ₹80 trillion. He explains how non-bank financial companies are addressing this gap by offering dynamic and flexible lending services designed for MSMEs — and shares useful lessons from their approach that can be applied in other emerging economies with similar credit challenges.
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When AI Gets It Wrong: Lessons from a Women-Centered Design Experiment Highlight the Need for Inclusive GPTs
In emerging markets, women entrepreneurs continue to face systemic barriers to financial inclusion. And as Koheun Lee at CARE explains, ChatGPT and other AI models sometimes contribute to this exclusion, reinforcing societal biases that limit women’s potential for business growth and long-term financial health. She shares insights from CARE's attempt to build a women-centered design GPT — and proposes some practical steps AI users can take to mitigate bias against women when working with mainstream GPTs.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Beyond Shock, Money or Mandate: Why African Banks Aren’t Taking Bold Climate Action — And What it Will Take to Move Forward
Africa is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world. Yet though climate finance has emerged as a growing solution, African banks have yet to truly ramp up their climate lending. As Carla Legros and Anthony Mbithi argue, one reason for this lack of urgency is that the financial case for this lending has rarely been framed in ways that resonate with how banks operate — namely, as a clear money-making opportunity in the near to medium term. They share a framework for understanding financial institutions' level of engagement in climate finance, providing funders and policymakers with a tool they can use to match their interventions to banks’ institutional reality.
- Categories
- Environment, Finance, Investing
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Moving Past the ‘Infrastructure of Hope’: Why Investors, Policymakers and Entrepreneurs Must Build a Modern E-Commerce Ecosystem in Southeast Asia
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for over 95% of all businesses in Southeast Asia, and millions of these entrepreneurs have migrated their hustle online. Yet according to Macy Castillo at Enstack, due to a lack of access to reliable payment options and other tools, they are attempting to build modern e-commerce businesses on a foundation of informal agreements and personal trust: an “infrastructure of hope” that leaves them exposed to payment fraud and locked out of formal finance. She argues that this is the central challenge for economic inclusion in Southeast Asia today, and explores Enstack's solution.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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A New Green Revolution in Indian Agriculture: How Satellite Remote Sensing is Quietly Transforming the Sector
Satellite remote sensing involves the use of satellite-based sensors to capture data about the earth’s surface. According to Sat Kumar Tomer at Satyukt Analytics, this technology is increasingly being used by Indian farmers and the businesses and organizations that serve them, generating data on vegetation health, soil moisture, irrigation patterns and other key drivers of agricultural productivity. He explores how satellite remote sensing is enabling a data-driven revolution in Indian agriculture, and how the sector can overcome barriers to wider adoption.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, Technology
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Transforming How Financial Service Providers and Fintechs Leverage Data: A New Free Tool Aims to Separate the Signal from the Noise
In today’s digital finance landscape, data is one of the most valuable assets. Yet as Sarah Corley at AllianceDFA and Mallory Sheff at DataKind explain, data remains siloed, fragmented and underutilized across the sector — and this challenge is particularly acute in emerging markets. They argue that this isn’t just a missed opportunity, but a structural barrier to inclusion and innovation, and share a free, open-access learning platform designed to help fintechs and other financial service providers turn data into action to fuel customer growth and retention.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Measuring Systems Change in Agricultural Finance in Africa: Practical Metrics and Guidance for Detecting and Tracking Real Change
Despite employing 65-70% of the region's population and contributing 20-40% of national GDPs, Africa's agriculture sector receives less than 3% of its overall commercial credit — and in some countries, that share hasn't changed for decades. But according to Carla Legros, a consultant and strategist in agricultural and inclusive finance, that doesn't necessarily mean that progress has stalled. She proposes a set of metrics for assessing whether systems change is actually happening in the continent's agricultural finance sector.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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From COVID to Foreign Aid Cuts: How Community-Led Financial Access Can Help Women and Their Communities Weather Crises
The COVID pandemic had a substantial impact on women’s financial access in many emerging economies — an impact that persists to this day. Now, as Kathy Guis at Kiva explains, a new crisis is building, as foreign aid cuts and broader macroeconomic uncertainty reduce funding to financial service providers focused on women’s inclusion. She argues that despite the urgency of other global issues, access to financial services matters, and explores how Kiva hopes to grow its support for women and other vulnerable populations despite the challenging funding environment.
- Categories
- Finance
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