NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The $720 House That’s Built in a Week and Lasts Two Decades

The world’s cheapest car is manufactured by the Tata Group. So is the cheapest water filter . Now the Indian company is setting its sights on the housing market with a $720 flatpack home that can be constructed in a week. The basic flatpack model is 215 square feet, consists of coconu...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Uncategorized

Region

South Asia

AP Refuses to Budge on Microfinance Legislation

Mumbai: The battle over the regulation of India’s Rs. 20,000 crore microfinance industry is far from over, with Andhra Pradesh, the largest market for Indian microlenders, remaining firm on retaining its own law on the issue despite a proposed national legislation. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) extend small loans to the rural poor at higher rates than banks after sourcing money from banks. The proposal for a national MFI law "doesn’t change the fact that MFIs come under...

Source

livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Muhammad Yunus Banks on Beating the Enemies of Microfinance

Muhammad Yunus is good at being calm. At 7.30am in a chilly office in central London, he talks with urbane charm and all the dispassionate objectivity of a philosopher as he considers the Bangladeshi government’s campaign against him, and the possibility that it might destroy his life’s work building up the world’s first ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Fairfax Enters India to Invest in Local Firms

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, a $30 billion (Rs.1.3 trillion)-plus diversified financial services company that owns stakes in Kraft Foods Inc. and Dell Inc., is entering India to invest in listed and unlisted Indian companies, a senior company official said. It will buy both minority as well as controlling stakes. Founded by Indian-born Prem Watsa , 61, popularly known as the Warren Buffett of Canada, Fairfax has appointed Harsha Raghavan, former India head of private equ...

Source

livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Environment

Region

South Asia

Credit Flow to Smaller Farmers Has Not Reached Sufficiently: Indian Finance Minister

Union Finance Minister of India, Pranab Mukherjee recently addressing the Meeting of the Board of Directors of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) said that the rural Bank should deploy new technology, innovate and create financially viable models that can take forward the process of financial inclusion. He said that the primary expectation of the nation from banks, including NABARD, in the next decade was to eradicate financial exclusion. He stated that the big...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Poor Countries Set to Benefit from Patent Agreement on Aids Drugs

People with HIV in poor countries have a real prospect of obtaining not just the basic, cheap drugs to keep the virus at bay, but some of the best medicines that are on offer anywhere in the world - at a price their governments can afford. This remarkable turnaround is due to the Medicines Patent Pool, headed by the formidable Ellen ’t Hoen, which has taken a concept many thought would never work and made it reality. On Tuesday, the patent pool announced its first licensing agreemen...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Indian Mobile Bank Eko Raises $5.5 Million Processing $270 Million

Innovative mobile banking platform Eko India Financial Services has raised $5.5 million from Creation Investments’ Social Venture fund, Promus Equity Partners and several unnamed angel investors. Mobile banking is one of the most exciting trends in the tech world outside Silicon Valley. And now that more people have mobile phones than toilets in the world, there’s a real chance at bridging the unbanked gap. Forget glitzy iPhone financial apps. The most innovative stuff is mobile...

Source

TechCrunch (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

RBI to Regulate Microfinance Sector, Says New Bill

NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday released the draft Micro Financial Sector (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2011, which seeks to make it mandatory for all microfinance institutions to be registered with the Reserve Bank, making it the sector regulator. The Bill in its earlier avtar had proposed that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will be the regulator of the sector. The government had introduced the Micro Financial Sector B...

Source

The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia