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Cash Shortages Cripple Mobile Money in Zimbabwe
The prevailing cash shortages have suffocated mobile money subscribers, who are failing to get their money or do cash-out transactions.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Indian Banks Looking to Raise Their Game Using Technology
In July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) set up an inter-regulatory working group to study issues relating to financial technology (fintech) and digital banking in the country. The aim is to understand major fintech innovations and developments and how the markets—the financial sector in particular—are adopting new delivery channels, products and technologies.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech
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Viewpoint: Africa’s Regulators Are Smothering Its Innovators
The birth of mobile money transfer in Kenya has raised optimism about the potential of the continent to leapfrog in other technologies. However, Africa’s mobile technology is starting to look like an exception despite efforts to create start-ups using emerging technologies and platforms such as drones, 3D printing, robots and machine learning.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- innovation
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Drinking Water ATM Takes Mobile Payments in Kenya
Global pump company Grundfos and telecommunications firm Ericsson have joined forces to deliver a ATM water dispenser that takes mobile payments.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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OPIC and Microsoft Commit to Support Wireless Internet Expansion in Kenya
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, today announced commitment and first disbursement to Mawingu Networks, a provider of solar-powered wireless Internet across rural Kenya. OPIC committed to financing a $4.1 million loan. Mawingu Networks was able to establish their current operating model using an initial grant in 2013 from Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). They received equity funding from Angel Investor Jim Forster, Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc., and Microsoft Corporation two years after their first phase of support.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Growing Influence of Telecom Companies in Off-Grid Markets
The growing use of mobile money solutions for electricity tariff payment is redefining the solar off-grid market in regions such as Africa. Here, mobile money services have seen a tremendous growth over the last decade.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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McKinsey says digital finance adoption could add trillions to high growth economies
Adoption of digital finance could add $3.7 trillion dollars to the GDP of emerging markets economies, including $1.1 trillion in China alone, according to a new McKinsey & Company report.
- Categories
- Technology
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Rice Engineer Secures Prestigious $625,000 ‘Genius Grant’
Rebecca Richards-Kortum, a bioengineering professor at Rice University, was named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology