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Digital payments is India’s new currency
Digital transactions have trebled and quadrupled in volume and value across various modes from wallets to cards and interbank transfers from a year earlier. Card transactions at point of sale (PoS) terminals at merchant locations have surged, reflecting a positive for the economy as more people start using their de bit cards for payments rather than for withdrawing cash at ATMs.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Why Impact Investing Has Reached a Tipping Point
Impact investing, the practice of taking environmental, social and governance factors into consideration in making investment decisions, refers to the full range of approaches within the category, including socially responsible investing.
The enthusiasm for Geczy’s impact investing class echoes another data point cited by panelists as an indicator of the ascendance of impact investing: According to a recent Bank of America survey, 85% of millennials are interested in, or are actively doing, impact investing.- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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UN Study: Digitization of Kenyan Farmer Payments Helps Tackle Poverty
One Acre Fund, supported by Citi, enabled farmers to easily make loan repayments via mobile money instead of cash, reducing the uncertainty, inefficiency, insecurity and high costs previously caused by cash transactions.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Study Calls on Impact Investors to Close Educational Attainment Gaps
According to a recent Global Impact Investing Network survey, impact investments in the education sector accounted for only 2 percent of global impact investing assets under management. The report further suggests that foundations can play a catalytic role in ensuring the flow of capital to educational organizations and for interventions designed to boost equitable access to higher education for underserved populations through the provision of "blended capital" (a combination of grants, "patient" or more affordable equity, and/or debt capital).
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10 things you need to know about the Better Business, Better World report
The report is an 88-page roadmap to help business leaders understand how the private sector can benefit from the SDGs, and reveals the issues that will present the biggest opportunities for their businesses over the next 13 years.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Tags
- global development, SDGs
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World Bank report highlights role of Agent Banking in Malaysia’s successful financial inclusion push
Malaysia has achieved one of the highest levels of financial inclusion among middle-income countries. According to data from the central bank, 92% of the adult population in Malaysia had a bank account in 2015, the second highest rate in ASEAN after Singapore.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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How Digitizing Agricultural Input Payments in Rural Kenya is Tackling Poverty: The Case of One Acre Fund
Since 2014, OAF has enabled farmers in Kenya to make loan repayments digitally using the mobile money service M-Pesa instead of in cash, increasing economic opportunity and financial inclusion in some of the world’s poorest farming communities.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Digital Toolkit to Give Tanzania Smallholder Farmers Access to Finance, Farm Supplies and Training
The digital toolkit will allow farmers to gradually pre-pay for the inputs they need via mobile money, at discounted prices. It will also provide them with a customized inputs package based on their crop and production goals, and deliver mobile-phone based farming advice to ensure the best use of those inputs.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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