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The unbanked: stop catering for the middle classes and open up to the world
Bladimir didn’t want a bank account. The 22-year-old son of corn and bean farmers in rural El Salvador had moved to the capital in search of greater economic opportunity, but a bank account was not part of that plan. He had grown up with stories of scams and disappointments, and had a deep distrust of bank accounts as a safe way to store his money.
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Financial Inclusion for Rural Youth Starts with Adults
The three-year Rural Youth Economic Empowerment Project in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen tested five different approaches to achieving financial inclusion among rural youth. It found that the most sustainable and scalable approaches leveraged infrastructure that had been used to serve adults, then adapted to serve both adults and youth at the same time.
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- financial inclusion, youth
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FINCA Kosovo Achieves Smart Certification for Client Protection
Today, FINCA Kosovo, the country's largest microfinance organization, announced it received the Client Protection Certification by Smart Campaign. This official recognition required an in-depth, external review of all of FINCA Kosovo's processes and policies. The positive results of this review reflect FINCA's deep commitment to high ethical standards in the treatment of its clients. FINCA Kosovo joins a group of over 60 certified financial institutions, including FINCA Kyrgyzstan, FINCA Azerbaijan and FINCA Bank Georgia.
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- Europe & Eurasia
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- microfinance
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Will demonetization reach C.K. Prahalad’s bottom of the pyramid?
What after demonetization? Can the Modi Government use it to empower the poor and turn the economic initiative into a definitive political initiative? The economists are divided on the issue. The Late Professor C.K. Prahalad the author of the much acclaimed book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid suggested some pathbreaking methods over a decade back that the economists backing demonetization could take heed off.
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Helping Microfinance Clients to Save: Are Incentives a Solution?
La Ceiba is a microfinance institution that serves low-income clients in rural Honduras, where the combination of distance, cost and knowledge gaps discourages clients from opening and maintaining a savings account. The MFI decided to leverage small incentives and special training to address those challenges; here's how they did it and what they learned along the way.
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Legitimate MFIs to Be Distinguished By Logo in Ghana
The Ghana Association of Microfinance Companies (GAMC) is to introduce a corporate signage for all licensed institutions in the sector by mid-2017. The signage, which would be present at the premises of all registered microfinance institutions in the country from January, is to help the public identify licensed companies to do business with.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- microfinance
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Is Microcredit a Vaccine or an Antibiotic?
In his third post in a series, Timothy Ogden asks if microcredit is a vaccine or an antibiotic. In other words, does it work best when delivered at the right dose and at the right moment, or when it's made available to an entire population? Thinking through that frame, he believes, can help social investors clarify their theory of change and guide what areas of microcredit innovation to invest in.
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Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, Institute of International Finance and MetLife Foundation Launch Project to Help Banking Industry Overcome Barriers to Financial Inclusion
The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI), the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and MetLife Foundation, together with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as a technical partner, announced today a two-year initiative to help advance the financial services industry’s ability to reach unserved and underserved populations. The project, titled Mainstreaming Financial Inclusion: Best Practices, will facilitate learning and action on how financial institutions can respond to the specific challenges of reaching lower income market segments. Through research, knowledge exchange, best practices, real world examples and expert insights, the project will identify and transmit practical guidance that financial institutions can use to expand quality services to the poor.
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