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Ecuador’s New Virtual Currency Is a Source of Pride, Worry
Jaime Rojas keeps his antiquated cellphone on the dashboard of his taxi. He can’t use it to play games or check Facebook, but his “dumb phone” has recently become a powerful tool: He can use it to buy gas, receive fares and send money to family.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
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Why Microfinance Loans Have Such High Rates
In recent years, microfinance—distributing small loans to the poor -- has been at the center of an intense debate about the ethics of charging low-income customers high interest rates and then making a profit from them.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Ecuador Is the World’s First Country With a Public Digital Cash System
The runaway success of mobile money products like M-Pesa, which first took off in Kenya, has inspired dozens of copycats around the world. Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America now have services allowing people to store and transfer money using their cellphones. But there's something different about Ecuador's new Sistema de Dinero Electrónico. It's being operated not by a private phone carrier or financial company, but Ecuador's left-leaning government.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- digital payments
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Mexico Bans Giveaways of Baby Formula at Hospitals
The Mexican government has banned free baby formula at hospitals in an effort to encourage breastfeeding.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- nutrition
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Mexico’s Anti-Poverty Programmes Are Losing the Battle
While most of Latin America has been reducing poverty, Mexico is moving in the other direction: new official figures reflect an increase in the number of poor in the last two years, despite the billions of dollars channeled into a broad range of programmes aimed at combating the problem.
- Region
- Latin America
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Latin America: Low-Income Millennials Present Big Market Opportunities
Hardly a day passes without a new article on how businesses are analyzing the needs, wants and spending trends of millennials. In the US alone, millennials (or Generation Y), those born between 1980 and 2000, represent 30 percent of the population. By 2025 they will be 75 percent of the workforce.The impact that millennials are starting to have on the global economy, the environment, and politics is enormous.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
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The ketchup sachet-shaped drug saving babies from HIV
Inside a foil sachet, which looks more at home in a fast-food restaurant, an exact dose of antiretroviral medicine is helping to protect newborn babies against the threat of infection from their HIV-positive mothers.
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- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
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This Colombian town is trying to get rid of cash — but it’s not so easy
A town of 5,000 is trying to become the first in Latin America to entirely phase out cash and rely solely on digital currency.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America