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How Does Digital Finance Impact Low-Income Clients? Insights From a New ‘Evidence Gap Map’
Digital finance can help people live happier, healthier and more prosperous lives – but those outcomes are not inevitable. And the more data we have about the effects of various digital finance products, the better those products will be, says Niamh Barry at Caribou Digital. That’s why the Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa created the Digital Finance Evidence Gap Map, which now includes 55 studies covering 60 products. Barry highlights some key insights from the research, and how it can boost the sector’s social impact.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Go-Jek buys fintech startup Coins.ph for $72M ahead of Philippines expansion
Today, Go-Jek announced it has acquired local fintech company Coins.ph through “substantial investment,” which gives it a majority stake in the business.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech, startups
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Enough Equity Financing: Why the Future of Impact Fintechs Depends on Private Debt
Many high-profile impact-focused fintech firms have been successful in raising Series A and B equity rounds, and many believe that form of capital can serve both growth and scale goals. But it can’t, says John Beckham, Chief Investment Officer at MicroVest Capital Management. Instead, he advocates more debt financing for fintechs that have proven their models. He explores why investors should embrace private debt as a key opportunity to turn a nascent marketplace for impact fintechs into a thriving one.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Tags
- fintech, impact investing
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Viewpoint: How the digital finance revolution can drive sustainable development
A new task force convened by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will consider how these two topics might best intersect: how the digital revolution in financing could be shaped not only to minimise potential harms, but in ways that could help advance the SDGs’ inspiring vision.
- Categories
- Finance
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Microcredit was a hugely hyped solution to global poverty. What happened?
Studies have shown it hasn’t really lifted people out of poverty. But it’s still made a difference in the lives of the poor.
- Categories
- Finance
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Mobile lenders drive microfinance entities to early grave
The zenith of microfinance lending in Kenya, as perfected by institutions such as Kenya Women Microfinance Bank saw many poor borrowers saddled with untenable debts.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Flutterwave and Visa launch African consumer payment service GetBarter
The app-based offering is aimed at facilitating personal and small merchant payments within countries and across Africa’s national borders.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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WorldRemit set to boost Ethiopia’s remittance income
“We are proud to be a pioneering bank in modernizing Ethiopia’s payment systems. The various e-payment facilities deployed have enabled us to become the number one provider of technology-based banking services,“ CBE President Bacha Gina said.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa