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The Digital Transformation: Four Opportunities and Three Threats for Traditional Financial Institutions
Digital finance can reduce the annual cost of serving customers by up to 80 percent – one reason why financial services providers are embracing it. As MicroSave founder Graham Wright sees it, this race toward digitization is creating a watershed moment for financial and social inclusion. The sector’s decisions now will determine whether it will contribute to truly inclusive economies – or create a growing digital divide. Wright explores four ways this transformation could help financial services providers and their customers – along with three major pitfalls they must avoid.
- Categories
- Finance
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Press release: Prodigy Finance Launches Refinance Product for International Working Graduates Looking to Reduce Financial Costs
Prodigy Finance, the pioneer in cross-border finance, announces the launch of a loan refinance product for international working graduates looking to reduce their student debt. The product will allow these alumni, who previously had limited options available to them, to save at least US$20,000 over the life of the loan, by accessing lower rates and choice of terms.
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- Press release
- Tags
- financial health
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Virtusa launches API Exchange for financial inclusion
The platform will include an online global FinTech marketplace and sandbox platform. APIX will accelerate financial services innovation and inclusion by enabling collaboration between financial institutions and FinTech innovators.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Press release: Citi and Banco Guayaquil Sign $20 Million Loan Agreement Benefiting Microfinance in Ecuador
With over 520,000 previously-unbanked clients that now have “Amiga Accounts” and a $70m loan book to finance microenterprises, Banco Guayaquil’s “Banco del Barrio” is one of the pioneering and most comprehensive inclusive finance programs in Latin America, significantly expanding access to financial services in Ecuador by leveraging a network of more than 4,400 non-bank customer touchpoints across the country.
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- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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New Income Tax in Rwanda Causing Major Financial Strain for Many Mobile Money Agents
More than 7 million Rwandans do their banking through their cellphones, but many of the agents who facilitate the banking transactions never declared their income to the country’s tax authority. Now the tax authority has started taking a 15-percent withholding tax from these agents’ incomes with the cellphone provider, plunging some of these agents into financial turmoil.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Alipay to acquire 45% shares of Pakistan’s Telenor Microfinance Bank
Alipay is a part of the internet giant Alibaba, which is Chinese retail, internet, technology, and AI company. On the other hand, Telenor Microfinance bank is Pakistan’s first scheduled microfinance bank that provides small loans to people who aim to set up their own business to come out of poverty.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- microfinance
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Africa’s dominant mobile money service is going global
M-Pesa’s over 23 million active subscribers in Kenya will also be able to send and receive money through their phones and be connected to WU’s 500,000 global agents.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Immigrants Create Jobs – Small Loans Can Help: New Research on the Impact of Supporting Underserved Entrepreneurs
Did you know that immigrants and their children have helped found 60 percent of the most highly valued tech companies in the U.S. (currently worth $3.8 trillion)? That statistic highlights a fact that’s being lost in the immigration debate: Recent immigrants are natural entrepreneurs, who create jobs and economic growth for themselves, their families and their communities. Opportunity Fund’s vice president, Gwendy Brown, explores new research showing how small loans can help immigrants and other underserved entrepreneurs build their businesses and maximize their impact.