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The Latest Marker of Chinese Interest in African Fintech Is a $120 Million Funding Round for OPay
Notably, OPay’s round follows on the heels of another major funding round by Chinese investors in an African-focused fintech startup after PalmPay raised $40 million in a seed round from Shenzhen-based Transsion Holdings, the top selling phone maker in Africa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: MoneyGram and Wing to Launch a New Mobile Wallet Service in Cambodia
Under this partnership, MoneyGram customers can remit and receive money conveniently via Wing Money mobile app. Customers also have the option to cash out using any of 7,000 WING cash Xpress outlets in Cambodia.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Badly Needed, Hard to Deliver: The Challenges of Selling Drought Insurance to African Farmers
Millions of poor farmers in Africa can't move beyond subsistence levels because of droughts and other weather disasters. Insuring farmers against these risks is key to helping build their resilience to climate shocks. But providing this insurance – while making a profit – is no easy matter. Jim Hight explores the challenges in discussing WorldCover, a drought insurance provider that's gaining traction in Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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U.S. Financial Health Pulse Finds Only 29% of People Living in the U.S. Financially Healthy
The Financial Health Network, the nation’s authority on financial health, in partnership with Flourish, MetLife Foundation, and AARP, today released the U.S. Financial Health Pulse 2019 Trends Report. Now in its second year, this year-over-year analysis of peoples’ financial health found that despite a strong economy, only 29% of people in the U.S. are financially healthy. As signs of a looming economic downturn increase, this indicates that the majority of Americans are still unprepared for short or long-term financial shocks.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- North America
- Tags
- financial health
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The Emergence of ‘SupTech’ – And How it Can Move Past the Experimentation Stage
“Suptech” describes tech innovation that enhances regulators' supervision of financial service providers. According to Arend Kulenkampff at BFA, it is leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to radically improve the oversight capacity of financial authorities and lessen the regulatory burden for providers, boosting financial innovation and inclusion. But as the suptech field develops, questions are emerging about exactly what it includes – and whether it's stuck in experimentation mode.
- Categories
- Finance
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As remittance market reaches saturation in Myanmar, mobile money keeps growing
If the mobile money market were a football match, then the second half has just begun. As the undisputed market leader, Wave Money is already a few goals ahead. It reports having almost 50,000 agents and more than 11 million customers, who remitted US$2.8 billion between January and September of this year.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Nigerian ‘unicorn’ Interswitch sells stake to Visa
Visa Inc (V.N) will buy a significant minority stake in Nigerian payments platform Interswitch, creating “an instant acceptance network across Africa” that will help drive expansion, both companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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How Do Consumers React to Psychometric-Based Credit Scoring?
Nearly 50 million Americans and literally billions more around the world have limited access to affordable credit – primarily due to a lack of credit histories. What's worse, many of these underbanked individuals are actually in decent financial standing – they simply do not have sufficiently mature credit scores. Psychometric (ie: personality-based) credit scores can address this issue – but how do customers feel about it? Saul Fine at Innovative Assessments shares results from recent surveys that aim to answer that question.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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