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A Better Way to Get Paid? : Defining quality for ‘payroll cards’
For low-income employees who lack access to bank accounts, payday often comes in the form of cash or a paper check. But cash can easily be lost or stolen, and checks often require a costly or time-consuming visit to a check casher. Reloadable, prepaid "payroll cards" are a much better alternative, says Thea Garon at the Center for Financial Services Innovation, in describing CFSI’s new Compass Guide to Payroll Cards.
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- digital payments
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Bill Gates Explains Why Bitcoin Won’t Help the Poor
According to the World Bank, approximately 2.5 billion people (roughly half of the world’s adult population) does not have a bank account due to reasons such as lack of money, high fees, long distances, and complicated paperwork.
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Bharti Airtel, India’s Largest Mobile Services Provider, Applies for a Payments Bank License
Bharti Airtel, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd. (AMSL), is applying for a Payments Bank licence with Kotak Mahindra BankBSE -0.69 % as a partner.
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- South Asia
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A Big Step Forward for Bolstering Financial Inclusion
Economists are paying increasing attention to the link between financial inclusion—greater availability of and access to financial services—and economic development. In anew paper, we take a closer look at exactly how financial inclusion impacts a country’s economy and what policies are most effective in promoting it.
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Why More Nigerian Microfinance Banks May Collapse
The Managing Director of Asha Microfinance Bank, in Nigeria’s western city of Lagos, Mr Aminul Bhuiya, on Thursday raised fears about the possible collapse of more microfinance banks in the country saying this was due to high cost of operation.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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If Cash Is King in Africa, Mobile Money Is Heir Apparent
For most African businesses and the populace at large, cash is king, owing to the continent’s developing electronic funds transfer systems and the slow uptake of technology-based remittance and payments platforms. But experts believe that the growing integration of telecommunications and banking in most African countries, as well as the continued revamping of platforms enabling electronic funds transfers, is helping mobile money to catch up to cash in terms of popularity.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Overlooked Secret to Successful Small Businesses: The ‘demand side of financing’
The inability to access capital is a frequent obstacle for would-be entrepreneurs in the developing world. But most of the energy spent on solving this problem is currently focused on the financial industry, or the supply side. Instead, we should focus more attention on the demand side of funding – working with entrepreneurs, argues Juan Carlos Thomas of TechnoServe.
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Viewpoint: Entrepreneurial Dream mEntrepreneurial Dream Made Easy in Pakistan
When 40-year-old Salma Bai wanted to set up her own tea shop in Faisalabad, her main worry was obtaining the capital that was required to start an entrepreneurial venture.
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- South Asia
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- microfinance
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