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Nestlé, Telenor Microfinance Bank partner to launch digital lending for farmers in Pakistan
Under this program, Telenor Bank has been disbursing loans to dairy farmers digitally. The bank has pioneered one of the country’s first data driven digital method in deciding the loan limits with near instant loans. Hence, the loans are disbursed directly to the farmers via Telenor Bank’s mobile banking platform, Easypaisa mobile wallets.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Perspective: What the World Can Learn From India’s Cash Experiment
A report last month showed that 99 percent of invalidated bills have now made their way back to banks, suggesting the government's plan to extinguish illicit cash has foundered. At the same time, though, currency in circulation is down by about 25 percent from where it would otherwise have been, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, while electronic transactions are up.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Ant Financial claims facial recognition first
The company deployed the technology in self-service terminals at a new health-focused restaurant launched by KFC in Hangzhou, China. Named Smile to Pay, the service enables users of Ant Financial’s Alipay mobile wallet service to pay for meals by scanning their facial features.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital payments
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Government’s BHIM app to be single point for all mobile payments in India?
The ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) is working on a multi-pronged strategy under which it plans to make the Bharat Interface for Money app, or BHIM, the single point for all mobile payments.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech
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Blockchain company ConsenSys launches $50m venture capital arm to tackle global challenges
ConsenSys is the brainchild of its founder, Joseph Lubin, who also was a co-founder of Ethereum, a blockchain technology. ConsenSys develops applications and tools based on Ethereum and is a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.
- Categories
- Technology
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Huge remittances milestone for Africa as TerraPay gets South Africa license
A mobile payments and remittances startup called TerraPay may have achieved what could turn out to be a huge industry milestone in the remittances space in Africa. The startup announced today that it has secured a license from the Reserve Bank of South Africa to conduct low-value international money transfers in the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Smart containers ready to disrupt the seafood industry
The seafood industry must comply with increasingly strict demands from consumers on sustainable seafood production. For that reason, a group of graduates have spent their summer at DNV GL developing smart “robot containers” with cooling systems that can sail to ports without any human interaction.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- product design, SDGs
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Gates Foundation and PATH wire up health data in Africa using a novel approach
The partnership is digitizing and connecting Tanzania’s healthcare system, linking a fragmented array of databases and information sources. A unified system could dramatically improve efficiency, accountability and cost savings for a country of 45 million people that struggles with infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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