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Interested in “Last Mile” solutions in a European context? We want to pick your brain
Help identify innovative partnership models to provide solutions to the Last Mile Challenge! No registration is needed, just gather all the ideas you have and come to comment, share and contribute on the online Google document. Changemakers will facilitate a dynamic ONLINE BRAINSTORM on 3 to 6pm CET on Wednesday, April 2.
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Rwanda’s Push for Financial Inclusion: The government has set a target of 90 percent financial inclusion by 2020
Six years ago, the 2008 FinScope survey found that just 21 percent of Rwandan adults were participating in the formal financial sector. Largely in response to these figures, the government launched bold initiatives focused on financial inclusion. Now, according to World Bank researcher Douglas Randall, signs of progress are everywhere.
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An Open Letter to Larry Page: Paul Polak urges Google CEO to invest in for-profit poverty alleviation
Google CEO Larry Page recently said he’d rather hand over his cash to Elon Musk, of Tesla, than donate it to a philanthropic organization. In an open letter, social entrepreneurship veteran Paul Polak suggests a third way for Google to make money and help the poor.
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Leapfrog invests $29 million in IFMR Capital Finance
US-based Leapfrog Investment has bought a minority stake in financial services provider IFMR Capital Finance for $29 million (Rs 174 crore). IFMR helps microfinance firms, small businesses, affordable housing companies and commercial vehicle financiers raise money on the debt markets.
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Vodafone to roll out M-Pesa services in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala
Vodafone India and ICICI Bank are planning to roll out mobile money transfer and payment service in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. With this, Vodafone India will cover almost all states in India, thereby enabling people to send, deposit or receive money through mobile phones.
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What Is Scale? Hint: Social Enterprises Don’t Have To Be Huge To Reach It
A couple of years ago, I was working on a strategic planning project for a start-up that got hung up on the idea of “scale.” The founders were thinking globally, but meeting locally – in a windowless conference room, with lousy coffee, a couple of laptops, and no employees. We made of lot of lists, blew through a lot of Powerpoint, did many meetings. The ideas were fantastic, the potential market of those who needed the proposed services were in the tens of millions, and the business plan was sleek. But they couldn’t start small enough to prove the model. It had to be national right away, because the idea was so strong.
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Weekly Roundup – 3/29/14: Blurred Lines in Banking – the changing definition of “bank” at the BoP
The Internet has reshaped banking in the U.S., where half of the population hasn’t entered a bank branch in the past month. This evolution has been even more dramatic at the BoP, where mobile and branchless banking services are making brick-and-mortar banks increasingly obsolete. We take a look at these changes in this week’s Roundup.
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What will new governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank mean for mobile money?
If you were waiting, the wait is finally over, former CBZ chief and Economist Dr Mangudya will be the new substantive Governor of The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. This comes at a time when the government is making deliberate efforts to re-position the Reserve Bank as the engine of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery. The Herald reports that Dr Mangudya will assume his reigns at his new no. 80 Samora Machel Ave offices effective 1 May for what could be the first of two five year terms.
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- governance, mobile finance
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