-
WhatsApp Begins Rolling Out Payment Service in India
Facebook-owned WhatsApp finally receives regulatory approval
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
Five Ways To Use Media To Challenge Social Norms: Lessons From Kashf Foundation’s Innovative Use of Television for Social Impact
While researching organizations that are making a social impact through narrative storytelling, producer Lara Storm spoke with Roshaneh Zafar, president and founder of Kashf Foundation, a Pakistani microfinance organization that also produces popular television shows focused on challenging harmful social norms. Zafar shares five lessons from Kashf’s success, which provide a useful foundation for other organizations that are exploring social impact through entertainment.
- Categories
- Finance
-
Press Release: Visa and STEMpower Partner To Drive Financial Inclusion and Job Creation in Ethiopia
A Bulgarian startup has found remote work in the AI industry for hundreds of refugees in the Balkans and the Middle East.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Press Release: IFC Provides $100 Million for Santander To Support Small and Medium Enterprises and Finance Renewable Energy in Brazil
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing a $100 million loan (equivalent to BRL560 million) to Santander Brasil to boost access to credit for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Half of this financing will be devoted to the commercialization of photovoltaic panels. Of the remaining amount, at least 20 percent will be directed to SMEs owned by women.
- Region
- Latin America
-
A Phone Can Only Do So Much: Why Mobile Access Isn’t Leading To Digital Financial Service Usage Among Women in India
India has made significant progress in financial inclusion in recent years. However low-income working women are not benefiting from this momentum, even when they receive their wages digitally. To better understand why, BSR’s HERproject and MSC have researched the financial behaviors of female garment workers in India. Akhand Tiwari at MSC and James Steady at BSR explore the results, and discuss how the financial inclusion sector should respond.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Telecommunications
-
Keeping Finance in the Family: How Intra-Family Accounts Can Help Low-Income Customers During COVID-19 – and Beyond
Banks in emerging countries often struggle to generate active usage of the accounts they offer to young people. Yet as Anne Marie van Swinderen at L-IFT points out, financial diaries research has shown that young people save frequently and significantly – especially when their earnings rise. She explores how intra-family accounts could help banks serve this challenging demographic during COVID-19 and in the longer term – while also expanding their financial services to other members of the family.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
- Tags
- COVID-19, financial inclusion, youth
-
Viewpoint: Fintech in Africa: Reshaping the Financial Sector
Across many countries in Africa, fintech is improving financial inclusion and stimulating innovation and productivity in major sectors, such as the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector and the agriculture sector, the backbone of the region's economy.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Analysis: Transforming a Supply Chain Into a Social Enterprise
Creating sustainability initiatives that can scale requires innovative balancing of social impact and profit seeking.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa