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Anchor Closes $2.4 Million to Scale Banking-As-A-Service for African Businesses
Anchor charges users for accessing the platform, but also takes a cut of every billable transaction.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Devolut Raises USD $600,000 in Pre-Seed Round to Optimize Returns in Latin American E-Commerce
The round had the participation of Seedstars International Ventures, FJ Labs, Far Out VC, Pareto 20, and Forum VC.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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BII and FMO Unveil $40 Million Commitment to Dashen Bank, Supporting Ethiopia’s Financial Sector
The innovative facility enables a progressive local bank to expand lending to exporters.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Yunus Was Right — Credit is Indeed a Human Right, and Savings is Important Too: Why the Microfinance Sector Must Avoid the ‘Circular Firing Squad’ and Promote Multiple Approaches to Financial Inclusion
Alex Counts, financial inclusion pioneer and founder of Grameen Foundation, took issue with Jeffrey Ashe’s recent NextBillion article, “Yunus Was Wrong—Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right.” He argues that, instead of seeing the world through an “either/or” lens, the financial inclusion sector should embrace multiple tools, including credit, savings, insurance and more — and he urges today's changemakers to avoid promoting one social innovation at the expense of others.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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MFast Gets Backing from Wavemaker Partners to Increase Financial Services Access in Vietnam
MFast announced it has raised $6 million in its Series A funding round, led by Wavemaker Partners.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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LemFi Bags $33 Million in Series a Funding Round to Fuel Global Expansion
LemFi launched in Canada in 2020 to enable “easy and low-cost” remittances to Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, remittances
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Sweeter Prospects for Cocoa Farmers: A Recent Study Shows How Formal Land Rights Improve the Financial Outlook for Smallholders in Cote d’Ivoire
Cocoa is one of the world’s most prized foods, but the smallholder farmers who produce it typically live in poverty and often lack formal rights to the land they're farming. Scott Graham and Anahit Tevosyan at FINCA International explore how a partnership between global chocolate companies and other industry and development sector players is strengthening farmers' property rights in Cote d’Ivoire — the source of 45% of the world’s cocoa — thereby aiming to improve their financial health and resilience.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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UNICEF to Commit $270 Million to Support Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu said the government will target about 71 million "extremely poor Nigerians" who live on less than $1.95 a day.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa