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Privacy of mobile money users threatened as Kenyan taxman chases revenue
Kenya has led the world in enabling the No.1 major mobile money ecosystem with over 90% of adults in East Africa’s largest economy transacting money through platform. While many other phone operators and governments around the world have looked on with envy as it has grown to nearly $30 billion a year in transactions, M-Pesa’s lobbyists have been fending off a more difficult adversary.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Singapore Government Joins IBM to Create Blockchain Innovation Center
Computing giant IBM has revealed that the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) are collaborating with it to establish its first Center for Blockchain Innovation in the country. The Innovation Center is expected to involve both global banks and fintech startups and to develop a number of technology pilots for the finance and trade industries, built on the Linux Foundation Hyperledger platform.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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- blockchain, fintech
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Americans’ Financial Capability Growing Stronger, but Not for All Groups: FINRA Foundation Study
While Americans as a whole are feeling less financial stress, making ends meet remains a daily struggle for millions — particularly women, millennials, African-Americans, Hispanics, and those lacking a high school education. These findings come from the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), released today by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation (FINRA Foundation).
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- North America
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More Cambodians struggling to repay MFI loans
Banking industry insiders expressed concern yesterday over a spike in the amount of delinquent debts reported by microfinance institutions (MFIs) across the Kingdom, which they attributed to farmers struggling to repay their loans after adverse weather conditions affected their crops.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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- microfinance
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Meet Africa’s off-grid entrepreneurs
In Kangemi, a slum in the fast-growing Kenyan capital Nairobi, Margaret Aoko, expounds the virtues of her new solar power system. 'At night the lights light up my produce so people can see it from afar,' the 49-year-old mother of six says, as she sells tomatoes, leafy greens and secondhand blankets to passers-by on the rutted dirt street.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Getting Silicon Valley Behind Development: First, change its attitudes
Silicon Valley has become the global center for entrepreneurship because it has developed the assets, networks and cultural values necessary to promote risk-taking and innovation. The Valley has an incredibly productive and self-reinforcing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Such a system may well be impossible to fully replicate in other places — especially in less wealthy, emerging market regions. However, entrepreneurial talent and passion can be found everywhere.
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- Uncategorized
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Paytm offers unsecured loans to small businesses, Mobikwik to follow suit
Paytm wants to prise the vice-like grip of banks away from local moneylenders over the loan business. The mobile wallet company, which aspires to become a digital bank, has started offering unsecured loans to merchants such as the neighbourhood grocer or the mobile recharge shop or the auto driver, who use the wallet to accept offline payments.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments
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Aadhaar goes global, finds takers in Russia and Africa
Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based identification system, may have its detractors at home, but governments overseas have shown interest in adopting the model or some form of it.
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- Uncategorized
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