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A microloan can help poor people in Bangladesh. What about New Jersey?
The Grameen Bank, one of the pioneers of microfinance, which has been operating its program in Bangladesh since the 1970s, released a study on one of its programs in New Jersey. The program works like this: Low-income women apply for a microloan as part of a small group, and all members of the group are accountable for ensuring each member makes payments.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- North America
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Nala has built a hassle-free, offline mobile money payment platform for Africa
While at least a hundred million Africans hold mobile money accounts, the process of transacting over the services is difficult, so Nala made an application that acts as an interface on top of the unstructured supplementary service data layer to make money transfers and payments much easier.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Viewpoint: Show Me the Money: Does Going Cashless Hurt Financial Inclusion?
At first glance, the ban on cashless stores seems to fly in the face of the drive towards a truly digital economy, but both sides of the table have compelling arguments.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- North America
- Tags
- digital payments
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Alarm Over Numbers of Mobile Loan Defaulters in Kenya
Currently, there are more than 380,000 Kenyans that have so far defaulted on loans taken from mobile money lenders according to a comprehensive report by Metropol Corporation CEO, Sam Omukoko.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Paypal to invest $750M, and Dragoneer $100m, into MercadoLibre, Argentina’s e-commerce powerhouse
“Digital commerce in Latin America is experiencing tremendous growth and MercadoLibre is well-positioned for continued leadership,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal, in a statement. “We’ve been impressed with the digital commerce and payments ecosystem Marcos and his team have built.”
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Safaricom increases e-commerce stakes after Alibaba Group deal
“This partnership seeks to connect Kenyans to even more business opportunities by enabling them to seamlessly source, purchase and import goods from the world’s leading manufacturers,” Safaricom Chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge said.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Can sustainable companies get a lower cost of capital?
Green bonds have been making headlines in the sustainable finance world the past few years because of their rapid growth. Emerging this year as a rising star in sustainable finance are green and sustainability loans.
- Categories
- Finance
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Jan Dhan Yojana’s social security feature has failed to take off
The claim numbers for two in-built social security schemes under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts are at abysmally low level of less than 10,000 claims paid so far.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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