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Kenyan Banks Scrambling to Leverage M-Pesa
Kenyan banks are reported to be scrambling to leverage Safaricom’s mobile banking platform, M-PESA, to attract more customers.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Opinion: The U.S. Post Office Banks on the Poor
People like to complain about banks popping up like Starbucks on every corner these days. But in poor neighborhoods, the phenomenon is quite the opposite: Over the past couple of decades, the banks have pulled out.
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- Uncategorized
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Safaricom Deal to Allow Diaspora to Send Money to M-Pesa Accounts
According to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), last year’s diaspora remittances reached US$1.3 billion (KSh112 billion), up from US$1.17 billion (KSh101 billion) in 2012.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Reserve Bank of India Eases Lending Norms for Microfinance Institutions
Move gives more leeway to medium-sized micro lenders to price their loans based on their cost borrowings
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- governance, microfinance
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Somaliland: Silatech and Kaaba Microfinance Partner to Support Youth Enterprise
Silatech has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kaaba Microfinance Institution (K-MFI), based in Somaliland, to promote youth enterprise and employment solutions. The agreement paves the way for the two organizations to jointly develop a Youth Enterprise Fund, which will provide dedicated funds and technical assistance to microfinance institutions throughout Somaliland.
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- Uncategorized
- Tags
- microfinance
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A Bank Account for All Adults … By 2016: India’s Nachiket Mor committee report has made headlines – will it make an impact?
In India, 40 percent of the population doesn’t have access to financial services. But a Reserve Bank of India committee has recommended providing bank accounts for all Indian adults by 2016 - and it has an intriguing plan for doing so. Some see this as “the starting point for a new financial architecture" in India. Will the impact measure up to the ambition?
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- Uncategorized
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African mobile phone leaders take action to expand financial inclusion
The 2nd African Mobile Phone Financial Services Policy Initiative (AMPI) Leaders Roundtable meeting held 4-6 February 2014 in Naivasha, Kenya, was a historic event and tremendous step forward in moving the region toward collectively focusing on harnessing and further enabling the expansion of digital financial inclusion across Africa.
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- Uncategorized
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Don’t charge to enlarge: the effect of interest rate changes on microfinance access
A STORY in the finance section this week looks at what has happened to microfinance interest rates. To summarise briefly: we argue that as microfinance for the very poorest borrowers has expanded, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have had to raise their rates. As MFIs target poorer, less reliable customers, they need to charge higher rates to cover increased defaults and steeper funding costs.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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