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US Fed Explores Blockchain Use Cases With Industry Participants
The Federal Reserve has established a working group that is exploring financial innovation across the broad range of its responsibilities and engaging with industry stakeholders to discuss the ways in which the payment system could be improved considering the new wave of innovation including distributed ledger technology.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- blockchain, fintech
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PotaVida Is a Smart, Solar-Powered Water Purifier for People in Need
The company: PotaVida, a Seattle startup that harnesses sunlight to disinfect water for use in disaster relief or refugee crises.
- Categories
- Environment, Technology
- Tags
- solar
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India Lags Peers in Its Bid Towards a Cashless Economy
The past couple of years have seen a number of initiatives to facilitate cashless transactions in the Indian economy, including the launch of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) earlier this year. Such moves may raise the volume of cashless transactions in India in the years to come but the latest available internationally comparable data shows why moving towards a cashless economy remains a Herculean challenge for the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Revolutionary SA e-Health Innovation hearScreen Goes Global
South African e-health startup hearScreen, which has developed a smartphone app detects hearing loss and links patients to health services, is active in more than 25 countries across the world and planning on expanding to a further 15 by the end of next year.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microfinance: Your Inflexible Friend
ON A shelf in Buland Iqbal’s tiny roadside shop, cassette tapes are slowly turning pale in the sun. Nobody wants them these days, even in a dusty suburb in one of India’s poorest states. So Mr Iqbal has branched out. First he moved into renting DVDs, then, more boldly, into pay-television. A loan of 31,000 rupees ($465) from Sonata, a microfinance firm, helped him acquire a few satellite dishes and decoder boxes. It seems like a clear-cut success for microlending. In fact, Mr Iqbal’s loan illustrates why microlending does not work all that well, and how it needs to change.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- fintech, microfinance
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Cisco, Narayana Health Team Up to Protect Data in Telemedicine Services
As digital transformation brings more users, devices and applications online, corporates and even hospitals are struggling to protect malware attacks.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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India vs. Pakistan: The Pros and Cons of Two Radically Different Digital ID Systems
India’s digital identification system, Aadhaar, has registered nearly 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion citizens. Just across the border, Pakistan's NADRA system has issued 120 million identities among the country's 180 million citizens. Both systems give citizens an ID and can give them access to both government and commercial services, yet they are radically different. Which approach provides the best model for other countries?
- Categories
- Technology
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Mobile Transactions Market to Exceed $500 Billion By 2018
The value of domestic money transfers, including operator money and social media money services, will reach $520 billion in global mobile transactions by 2018, up nearly 200% from an estimated $178 billion last year.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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