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Indian Banks Looking to Raise Their Game Using Technology
In July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) set up an inter-regulatory working group to study issues relating to financial technology (fintech) and digital banking in the country. The aim is to understand major fintech innovations and developments and how the markets—the financial sector in particular—are adopting new delivery channels, products and technologies.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech
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GE Healthcare to invest up to $50 million in start-up accelerator programme
GE Healthcare, the $18 billion healthcare technology division of General Electric Co., will provide funding of up to $50 million for global start-ups under its new accelerator five.eight programme, aimed at improving affordable healthcare in emerging markets.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Vodafone India’s M-Pesa Rolls Out Pension Payment Scheme
Vodafone India is pioneering a mobile money scheme allowing the state to pay social security pensions directly to an M-Pesa account across remote villages in the north of the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Virtual Network Operators in India Band Together in Attempt to Develop $4 Billion Industry
Virtual Network Operators Association of India (VNOAI) has been incorporated with the objective of promoting activities geared towards the development of Virtual Network Operators industry, US$ 4 billion business opportunity in India.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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India: IFC to Extend Up to $40m to Microfinance Firm Ujjivan Through Debt Investment
International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of World Bank plans to invest up to $40 million in Indian micro finance institution Ujjivan Financial Services in form of a senior debt investment.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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White House: U.S. to Support $10 Million in Loans to Myanmar Small Businesses
At the invitation of President Barack Obama, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is on an official visit to Washington, D.C. in September 2016. During the visit, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Obama held a meeting on September 14 in the White House and adopted this joint statement.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- lending
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One Solution to Keeping India’s Girls in School: Cheap Maxi Pads
In many stores across India, shopkeepers wrap maxi pads in black polythene. If they don’t have that, the products go in a small carton or brown paper bag. Absent those, “we try hiding it while walking down the road because of how people would react," says Khushboo Navani, a 23-year-old woman who lives in Bikaner. "People give you weird looks," she adds.
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- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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The One-Rupee Trick: How Banks Cut Their Zero-Balance Jan Dhan Accounts
In August 2014, a few weeks after the launch of Jan Dhan, the government’s flagship scheme under which the unbanked get bank accounts, Kamlesh, a housewife at Purnapur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, opened an account at the Punjab and Sind Bank’s local branch. Wife of a farmer, the opening balance in her account was zero. This wasn’t unusual — in fact, accounts like Kamlesh’s, called zero-balance accounts, made up almost half of all the 17.90 crore Jan Dhan accounts a year later given that most of the holders were poor and had little by way of savings.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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