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An Ironic Impact of COVID-19: Will the Pandemic Put Digital Health (Finally) on the Path to Reducing Health Inequalities at Scale in Emerging Markets?
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a digital health revolution, and Michal Matul and Niti Pall at AXA Emerging Customers say these shifts could help close the healthcare access gap in emerging markets. Based on AXA's work bundling digital health services into its inclusive insurance products across nine countries, they share key lessons on how telemedicine can sustain this momentum and become a viable option for eliminating health inequalities over the long term.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Technology
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Ag and Foodtech Startup Demetria Emerges From Stealth to Spearhead the Transformation of the Coffee Industry
Demetria, the first AI-powered taste and quality intelligence SaaS startup for the coffee supply chain, announced today it has emerged from stealth after closing a $3 million seed funding round led by LatAm-Israeli investor Celeritas and a group of private investors including Mercantil Colpatria, the investment branch of Grupo Colpatria, a leading player in the Colombian financial sector.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Somalia Issues First License to Mobile Money Service
Somali officials on Saturday issued the country's first license to a mobile money service, bringing regulation to the widely used digital payment process for the first time.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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In the Race for Dominance in African Fintech, Partnerships With Phone Makers Are Transforming the Landscape
Corporate partnerships and acquisitions have proliferated in Africa's fintech sector in recent years, as companies fight for dominance in the growing digital payment space. Digital economy analyst Jill Lagos Shemin highlights an emerging element of this trend: alliances between mobile phone makers and payment providers and telecom operators. She explores how these partnerships can boost customer access to smartphones and digital credit, while expanding Africa's digital finance ecosystem and building tech players' footprint in this sought-after market.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Stori Raises $32.5 Million in a Lightspeed-led Series B to Build Mexico’s Credit Card for the Masses
While credit cards are commonplace in the United States, they are far less ubiquitous in many other countries, particularly those in Latin America. In Mexico in particular, cash remains the dominant method of payment, with an estimated 86% of all payments being in the form of cash.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Women in Rural Rajasthan Plug the Last- Mile Gap Between Consumers and Sellers
Frontier Markets is technologically enabling rural women to use their social network and social capital in the village to book orders
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Viewpoint: How Blockchain-Powered Fintech Services Can Improve Financial Inclusion
Until now not many new financial services make it genuinely easy for new users to use fintech products, especially those that involve blockchain or cryptocurrency.
- Categories
- Technology
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Social Protection Goes Digital: Lessons From an Innovative, WhatsApp-Driven Outreach Campaign in Paraguay
The COVID-19 lockdown has reshaped social policy in Paraguay, as programs that depended on face-to-face contact to reach participants suddenly found themselves unable to conduct their usual outreach. Cristina Heisecke, Carolina de Miranda and Mauricio Royg of Fundación Capital share lessons from an innovative solution to this challenge: a digital campaign that used WhatsApp to offer a remote alternative to the in-person training and coaching of the country's flagship cash transfer program.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance, Social Enterprise, Technology
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