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A Devil’s Bargain to Bank the Unbanked: Why Financial Inclusion Advocates Shouldn’t Trust Facebook’s Libra
As you've likely heard, Facebook has entered the inclusive finance arena, pitching Libra, a global cryptocurrency – ostensibly to promote financial inclusion. But as Digital Equity co-founder Valerie Khan argues, there are plenty of reasons to doubt Facebook's intentions and Libra's “social good” marketing campaign. In fact, she says, "Facebook is not being transparent about its real interest in Libra" – and both financial inclusion advocates and emerging countries should beware.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Viewpoint: The Upside to Facebook’s Libra Disaster
If Facebook really wants to bring financial services to the “unbanked,” it should try doing it on a smaller scale than these companies’ presence promised. And even then, the probability of failure will be high.
- Categories
- Finance
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Making Technical Assistance Work in Africa: Three Keys to Success for Financial Services Providers
It’s not easy delivering data-driven financial services to financially excluded customers in Africa. That’s why technical assistance can be essential to these financial service providers' success. Dumisani Dube at Insight2Impact (i2i) explores the technical assistance programs that i2i provided to seven financial service providers across the continent, and shares what worked – and what didn't.
- Categories
- Finance
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Nubank Fintech Grows Client Base By 25 Percent Since August
The largest FinTech startup in Latin America — Brazil’s Nubank — is reporting a 25 percent increase in the number of clients since August, Reuters reported on Friday (Oct. 11).
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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Viewpoint: How Aadhaar Bill Will Benefit Startups and the Fintech Segment
With the all-new Aadhaar Bill, the startup ecosystem has breathed a massive sigh of relief.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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The Risks From India’s Rotten Banks
Roughly a third of the financial system is on crutches or under suspicion. Dazed by the scale of the task, the government and the Reserve Bank of India are dithering. Until they act, India’s economy will not perk up—and there is a danger of a full-blown crisis.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Nigeria Is Finally Turning to Telcos to Drive Financial Inclusion Through Mobile Money
Financial inclusion in East Africa has been significantly impacted by the wide adoption of mobile money services—led by Kenya— but the uptake has been slow in Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Airtel and Mastercard Expand Digital Banking Services Across 14 African Countries
Telecoms and mobile money services provider, Airtel Africa announced that it is partnering with Mastercard to give over 100 million Airtel Africa mobile phone users across 14 African countries access to Mastercard’s global network.
- Categories
- Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Latin America
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