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Affordable Housing: Where Success Favours the Brave
Affordable and mid-income housing is a beast like no other. It has a business model that bears little similarity to traditional real estate where developers often rely on price appreciation. Here, the margins are a lot lower, and builders must construct township-like projects quickly. A delay can wipe out profits, while buyers don’t have the ability to pay EMIs if projects are held up. Despite these challenges, three companies—Ashiana Housing, Poddar Developers and Value Budget Housing Corporation (VBHC)—have decided to focus on this segment.
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Press Release: Acumen Launches to Tackle Poverty in Latin America
Acumen announced today its expansion to support social entrepreneurship in Latin America. The pioneer in impact investing will be headquartered in Bogotá and will invest in innovative entrepreneurs and enterprises in Colombia and Peru to drive faster, sustainable solutions to poverty and create new paths forward to tackle economic inequality. While extreme poverty in Latin America has declined by half, more than 80 million people still live on $4 a day and more than 200 million are at risk of being pulled back into poverty by economic instability and climate change.
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- Latin America
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How Mobile Money Is Saving Africa $2bn Annually
Mobile phones have proven to be potential game-changers inboosting access to financial products and services to people in Africa. This is particularly true for those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid as seen in East Africa. It has often been appraised based on its contribution to ‘banking the unbanked’, but mobile money has achieved much more, it has saved the continentnearly $2 billion previously lost annually to inefficient money transfer.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Safaricom Safe From Being Declared Market Dominant in Kenya, Regulator Says
Kenya's competition regulator said it won’t impose penalties on mobile-phone company Safaricom Ltd. to limit its market dominance as there’s no evidence to suggest the company has abused its position.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Cryptocurrency Maker Ripple Labs Fined $700K for Flouting Financial Regs
Today federal regulators announced a fine (PDF) of $700,000 against cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs for failing to register as a money service business. Ripple Labs built a payment transfer platform that people can use to move real or virtual money, and the company maintains its own cryptocurrency, called XRP II, which loosely compares to Bitcoin. (Unlike Bitcoin, XRP was fully generated before it went on the market, so an equivalent to Bitcoin miners doesn't exist in XRP.)
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- regulations
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Western Union Said in Early Stage Talks to Buy Rival MoneyGram
Western Union Co. is in early-stage talks to acquire smaller rival MoneyGram International Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, as both companies contend with stiff competition from upstart money-transfer companies.
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Impact Investing Grows, but There’s Still a Dearth of Deals
A new study found that 146 of the world’s largest impact investors manage a big hunk of change: $60 billion. But they also continue to bemoan a lack of high-quality investment opportunities. And finding a way to exit isn’t easy.
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- impact investing
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Press Release: Greta Bull Appointed New CEO of CGAP and World Bank Group Director
The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), today announced the appointment of Greta Bull as its new CEO. As CGAP’s CEO, Ms. Bull is also a Director at the World Bank Group.
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- Uncategorized
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- microfinance
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