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A Short Holiday for the NB Team:
So that NextBillion's editorial team can enjoy the Labor Day holiday here in the United States, we are taking a little break. NextBillion will resume publication on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
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Funding for Indian Startups Won’t Dry Up: Omidyar’s Roopa Kudva
Roopa Kudva, 51, took charge of the India operations of New York-based impact investor Omidyar Network in early July.
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Viewpoint: Costly Cash
Suppose there were a way of getting money to some of the world’s poorest people precisely when they need it. Suppose, too, that the flow hardly ever diminished, even during a global financial crisis. Finally, suppose the cash could not be creamed off by corrupt local officials. Surely every right-minded government in the world would want to encourage this and make it as cheap and easy as possible?
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Will India’s New Focus on Financial Inclusion Pay Off?
When India launched the Jan Dhan (people’s wealth) program a year ago, many observers regarded it as an experiment that would fail. But while the program may not have measured up to the claims of its proponents, evidence shows it has had some positive impacts.
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Viewpoint: The Case for Islamic Microfinance in Africa
Professor Badr El Din A. Ibrahim, President of the Microfinance Unit at the Central Bank of Sudan, discusses why Shari'ah-compliant financing is key.
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Mobile Lender InVenture Raises $10 Million
InVenture Capital Corp., a provider of small loans by cellphones, has raised $10 million in Series A funding, Yuliya Chernova reports for Dow Jones VentureWire. The company has a mobile app that can be downloaded by users, who then can request a loan. Once the user has granted the app access to their device, the company’s algorithm evaluates the activity on their mobile money accounts, such as how much they deposit and withdraw, the timeliness of their utility bill payments, and thousands of other nuggets of information such as social media, demographic, and communications patterns, to make a loan decision in minutes. The company currently operates in Kenya and Tanzania. Data Collective led the Series A round, which includedLowercase Capital, Collaborative Fund, Female Founders Fund and individual investors.
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Five Key Findings From the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project Report & Scorecard
Convenient access to banking infrastructure is something many people around the world take for granted. Yet while the number of people outside the formal financial system has substantially decreased in recent years, 2 billion adults still do not have an account with a formal financial institution or mobile money provider.
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Mobile wallets like Paytm and Mobikwik are tying up with kirana stores in rural India
Mobile wallet and payment services such as Paytm and Mobikwik are tying up with kirana stores in semi-urban and rural areas as they seek to grow in regions underserved by banks.
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