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Kenya’s Jamii Bora Bank sheds microfinance tag
Jamii Bora Bank has announced that it is now targeting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in a major change of strategy that has seen it shed the microfinance tag.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- microfinance
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Amazon and the Bank of India Are Helping Small Businesses
The State Bank of India (SBI) and Amazon.in have agreed to work together and focus efforts on improving payments and e-commerce solutions for small businesses across the country.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments
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Vodacom’s M-Pesa Relaunch Is a Flop
A second attempt by Vodacom to launch the M-Pesa mobile payments platform in South Africa has flopped.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments
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Findex: Sub-Saharan Africa Continues to Be the Leading Frontier of Financial Inclusion
Half of the world's population lives and works in the informal economy - not by choice, but by necessity. In the language of economists, poor families in developing countries are consumption-smoothing households and capital-consuming, self-employed entrepreneurs at the same time. As a result, they need a broader range of financial services to manage inevitably irregular income and expense spikes, accumulate working capital, build assets, and mitigate risks. Lacking better alternatives, they often resort to informal financial mechanisms, such as moneylenders, pawnbrokers, and rotating savings clubs, which can be very unreliable and expensive.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Angel Investing 2.0 – Will Angel Investing Go Online in India?
The last one year has seen a huge surge in angel investing in the Indian startup ecosystem. As a platform that has now become the largest marketplace for startup funding; we have been witnessing how the ecosystem has evolved over the last 18 months. In early 2013 when LetsVenture was founded, startup funding was traditionally done through offline networks and fundraise was challenging; our intent was to make fundraising faster and efficient for the founders.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing
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How Do You Know You’re Really Reaching the Poor?: Tips for microfinance providers considering digital services
Though many microfinance institutions operate in impoverished areas, they often have little or no objective poverty data on the clients they’ve reached. Pride Microfinance wanted to avoid this problem when it rolled out its digital financial services programs this year, so it worked with Grameen Foundation to measure its social impact. The lessons it learned can be valuable to other MFIs considering going digital.
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- Uncategorized
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Bitcoin Microfinance Can ‘Reach Anyone with a Cell Phone Who Wants a Friggin’ Loan’
How bitcoin — or other cryptocurrencies — along with microfinance and mobile technology could form a new platform that would make it easier to dole out loans and charity.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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India’s Jan Dhan financial inclusion drive hits customer service barrier
Creating new accounts is not enough. Banks’ behaviour towards low income clients is a major roadblock
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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