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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...
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- South Asia
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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...
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- South Asia
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Blackstone to Invest $34 Mln in India’s FINO
(Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group said on Thursday it will invest 1.5 billion rupees ($34 million) in FINO, an Indian technology solutions provider for banks, microfinance institutions and insurance companies. Existing investors in FINO include HSBC , ICICI Bank and Intel Capital, according to the website of the company that was set up in 2006 and is based in Mumbai. Private equity de...
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- South Asia
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Banks Asked to Up Credit Flow to SMEs
While bank advances were growing above 20 per cent yearly, lending to small and micro enterprises (SMEs) should also grow at a decent pace, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) told banks in the annual review meeting of its standing advisory committee on SMEs on Tuesday. "Credit growth is more than 20 per cent, higher than RBI’s projection. In Tuesday’s meeting, the focus was that micro credit also should grow. Banks will try to see how to step up credit, especially to small manufact...
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- South Asia
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WB to Give $1 Bn for Rural Livelihood Programme
NEW DELHI: The World Bank has approved $1 billion credit for National Rural Livelihoods Project ( NRLP )), which it said will aim at strengthening the implementation of the newly launched National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). NRLM is one of the world’s largest poverty reduction initiatives costing approximately $ 7.7 billion, aiming to reach 350 million people. The World Bank will help the Indian government create institutional platform by mobilising rural...
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- South Asia
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Teatulia: A Tea Company Helps Lift a Village Out of Poverty
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- For some businesses, giving back means making a tax-deductible donation to a local little league team. But for Teatulia, an organic tea company, giving back means creating a better life for a community halfway around the globe. The two-year-old startup has done what many companies cannot or will not, which is marry a revenue-growing business with a thriving social responsibility program. The Denver company sells organic tea that is now sold in Whole Foods an...
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- South Asia
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Microfinance Firms Asked to be ?Fair? to the Poor
Mumbai: It’s back to basics for the Rs. 20,000 crore Indian microfinance sector as industry lobby group Sa-Dhan, which counts at least 250 microfinance institutions (MFIs) as members, has asked all such firms to deal "fairly" with debtors and avoid coercion in collecting dues. The association will in the next few weeks discuss compliance issues with individual MFIs, Sa-Dhan executive director Mathew Titus said. "The effort is to move towards a new regulatory regime," he added. ...
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- South Asia
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How NextDrop is Using Cell Phones, Crowdsourcing to Get Water to the Thirsty
In many cities in developing countries, residents have piped water supplies. But there’s a catch: the water is only available through the pipes for a few hours at a time, and people have no way of knowing when that will be. As a result, residents (mostly women and the poor) spend their days just waiting for the water to arrive. NextDrop , one of the winners of the Knigh...
- Region
- South Asia
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