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Indians are using mobile wallets more but for smaller purchases
As the Indian economy recovers, mobile wallet payments are continuing to accelerate. Their transaction value of over $3.6 billion in the first quarter of 2017 marked a 60% increase from the previous quarter, according to a new report from RedSeer Management Consulting.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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WHO India backs government plan to make medicines cheaper, says global impact will be positive
As the government gears up to push generic medicines to bring down costs for patients, World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in India, Henk Bekedam has stated that the move, if successfully implemented, will not only reduce the cost of medicines within the country but also globally.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Fintech’s Coming to Trounce India’s Banks
India's banks, which still dominate the country's financial landscape, appear to have hardly a kick left in them. Stressed assets without any loan-loss cover now exceed $96 billion, McKinsey & Co. said last week. An overwhelming 91 percent, or $87 billion, of the provisioning gap is at state-run lenders, whose net worth would be wiped out if they took the hit on their capital.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech, mobile finance
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Women in northern India said, ‘No toilet, no bride,’ and it worked
Through radio spots, billboards, posters and painted slogans on buildings, the “No Toilet, No Bride” campaign, launched by state authorities in 2005, encourages women and their families to demand that male suitors build a private latrine before they will agree to marriage.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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World Health Assembly: Pakistan presented as a model to countries
Pakistan was presented on Saturday as a model to countries attending the World Health Assembly as it became the first nation to conduct joint external evaluation of core capacities to respond to disease outbreaks and the level of preparedness to deal with pandemics.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Paytm to start India payments bank operations from May 23
The company will transfer its wallet business, which has over 218 million mobile wallet users, to the newly incorporated entity -- PPBL -- under the payments bank licence awarded to a resident Indian, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of One97 Communications that owns Paytm.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Poor ideas and poorer engineers are killing Indian startups
Six in ten recognized that India’s skilled workforce as an asset for businesses. Calls to slash the corporate tax rate from 30% to 25% is “expected to further boost startup activity,” IBM notes.
But despite all the efforts, the industry is built on a flawed foundation. More than 90% of startups in India fail within five years of founding, according to IBM.- Region
- South Asia
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With Android Go, Google tries again at emerging markets
On Wednesday, at the Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California, Google said it's starting a new program, focused on phone software, instead of phones themselves. It's called Android Go (though that's just an internal name), and the goal is to make Google's blockbuster mobile software better cater to people on entry-level phones.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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