-
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
-
Philippines government’s microfinance facility goes nationwide
With sufficient funds to provide to borrowers, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and its micro-financing arm Small Business Corporation (SB Corp) will lead the implementation that will assist micro entrepreneurs financially and enable them to grow their businesses.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- governance, microfinance
-
New Partnership Aims To Lift Women Microentrepreneurs In Myanmar Out Of Poverty
OPIC and DAWN announced in early May that the former had agreed to provide a $5 million loan to support DAWN’s activities in the country. An outgrowth of Save the Children’s Myanmar operation, DAWN has been operating independently of the NGO for the past two years, with strong support from Accion and other stakeholders. When DAWN launched in 2015, it had 27,000 clients carried over from Save the Children. Two years later, it serves 80,000 women and has its eye on rapid expansion.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
Cambodian Government Launches $60 Million Project to Help Small Farmers
“The supply and demand in the country is not balanced—like with vegetables, so there are imports to fill the demand,” Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said at the event yesterday at the Commerce Ministry in Phnom Penh. “We need to understand and organize a system to boost the harvests of these crops.”
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
Branchless Banking Customers in Indonesia Vulnerable to Overcharges, Data Breaches, says MicroSave Survey
Agents are typically the main conduit of information for branchless banking customers regarding transaction fees. According to the survey, 74 percent of digital financial services users in urban areas and 88 percent of users in rural areas rely solely on their agents – who typically print their own pamphlets that advertise false transaction fees – for relevant information, Mohammad said.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- fintech, mobile finance
-
E-payments to dethrone cash
“There is a clear correlation between the share of electronic payments and the opportunity for GDP growth,” Tim Murphy, general counsel and chief franchise officer for MasterCard, told The Post on the forum’s sidelines. “With every 1 percent increase in the share of electronic payments of a country’s personal expenditure, you can see somewhere between a third and a half of a percentage point increase in GDP.”
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
The peculiarities of ESG investing in China
The report found that the more strict the ESG rules a manager wants to follow, the bigger the deviations from country weightings in broad emerging market indices.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- governance
-
ASEAN and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Speaking at the forum’s opening, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged his fellow leaders to ensure the region’s massive youth population is properly equipped for the jobs of tomorrow. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution, with its new technologies, will pose new opportunities and challenges to ASEAN.”
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific