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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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Perspective: There’s a Lot We Still Don’t Know About Libra
Last month, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg spent over five grueling hours answering myriad questions from the members of the House Financial Services Committee on issues like election interference, hate speech, censorship and discriminatory advertising. While it was an important reminder of the many dangers that Facebook already presents to our society, we didn’t actually learn much about the hearing’s ostensible topic: Facebook’s audacious plan to create an association of big businesses to issue a new digital currency called Libra.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- cryptocurrency, fintech
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As Debt Grows, More Indian Women Farmers Taking Their Lives
A vicious debt cycle is forcing women in Maharashtra state's Amravati to take their lives as agrarian crisis persists.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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A Look Into India’s First Digital Village
“We saw the situation in the rest of India, long lines, fights—everyone’s life had come to a stand still. We were amazed,” says Urmila Ben, a resident of Akodara. “People had made such a big deal out of this whole demonetization, but we could not be bothered any less,” says Chintan Patel, the sarpanch, or head of the village. “For us, life went on as usual.”
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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