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Vikram Pandit’s PE firm invests $100 million into financial inclusion credit card
Fair Square Financial has received a $100 million equity investment from the Orogen Group to fund a credit card designed for underserved U.S. consumer segments.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- North America
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More College = Less Poverty: The Impact of Peer-to-Peer Lending
More than 57 million students globally are qualified but have not enrolled in higher education, mostly because they lack the money. Yet banks often don't want to lend to them, due to their lack of collateral, uncertain earning potential and long repayment periods. That’s why Ryker Labbee and Kirk Acevedo launched peer-to-peer student lender Zomia, targeting nearly 1 million potential college students in Myanmar and Cambodia. They explore how the model could scale into other markets and reduce poverty.
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Zimbabwe bans banks from processing payments for cryptocurrencies
Zimbabwe’s central bank has stopped local banks from trading or processing payments linked to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, its governor said on Monday, but stopped short of banning local cryptocurrency trading exchanges.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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TPG ventures into African market with purchase of $47.5m stake in telco Cellulant
Private equity group TPG has announced its first venture into the African market as its Rise Fund acquired a stake in telco firm Cellulant. TPG will buy a $47.5m stake in the digital payments provider, which reaches around 40 million people over 11 African countries.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Ghana unveils mobile money interoperability platform
Mobile money interoperability went live in Ghana following a number of delays, a step hailed by the country’s Vice President for propelling the country into one of the global leaders for the technology.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Visa and FICO rewrite their playbooks to go after global unbanked
Across the globe, many different populations have distinct reasons for being unbanked. To reach these audiences, mainstream financial companies are discovering approaches that wouldn't be possible in the U.S.
- Categories
- Finance
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Financial inclusion is making great strides
In both rich and poor countries, financial technology, or fintech, is already seen as the dominant force behind the big advances of recent years recorded in the Findex
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Digital Remittances: Now that they’re here, where are they headed?
Economic migrants send US $600 billion back to their home countries each year, most using expensive "traditional" agent networks, despite the availability of cheaper digital channels. But Xavier Martin Palomas with the Digital Frontiers Institute notes that in the past five years, we've seen a new wave of players and a renewed push toward digitizing remittances. Next month the Digital Frontiers Institute will launch its first course, Remittances in the Digital Age, to study the rapidly changing industry.
- Categories
- Finance
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