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India’s Financial Services Firm Paytm Raises $1B
Paytm mobile wallet enables users to transfer money to each other, pay for food delivery and clear utility bills, buy train and movie tickets as well as secure small loans.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech, startups
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Will Artificial Intelligence Become The Future Of Fintech In India?
About 32% of financial service providers are already using AI technologies like predictive analytics, voice recognition among others, according to joint research conducted by the National Business Research Institute and Narrative Science.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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UAE-Based NextGenI Closes an Acquihire deal with Pakistani Startup Roshni Rides
The trend of acqui-hiring talent for startups is relatively new especially in Pakistan where one company ‘Aqui-hires’ the talent from another company to build an in-house team, mainly to scale the product faster than they would otherwise by painstakingly hiring each individual team member.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- startups
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Inside Tata Power and Rockefeller Foundation’s Plan to Light Up 5 Million Households in India
This is a defining moment for bending the energy access curve. In the words of Amitabh Kant, the CEO of the Indian government’s think tank Niti Ayog, “This partnership is essential for the people of India and its rural communities, giving a thrust to a massive multiplier effect [energy can have] on India’s economy and move social indices forward in some of its most difficult terrains.”
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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A social enterprise in Kerala combines sustainability and women’s empowerment
Does it come as a surprise that the six yard wonder, the sari (a version of cloth) is one of the largest polluters of Vembanad lake, along with plastic? Social entrepreneur Sanju Soman, one of the people behind Bhava, a social enterprise that upcycles saris and cloth explains, “Cloth usually escapes attention as a pollutant due to the constant spotlight on plastic. It is as bad, and one of the largest pollutants taking years to disintegrate, ending up as landfill or in water bodies. A cotton bag is not very much better than a plastic bag, it also leaves a footprint in water, like here in the Vembanad lake. Plastic bags came as alternatives to paper bags, for which trees were cut. We started using more of it, less of paper bags and single use plastic became the problem it is today.”
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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As remittance market reaches saturation in Myanmar, mobile money keeps growing
If the mobile money market were a football match, then the second half has just begun. As the undisputed market leader, Wave Money is already a few goals ahead. It reports having almost 50,000 agents and more than 11 million customers, who remitted US$2.8 billion between January and September of this year.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Nigerian ‘unicorn’ Interswitch sells stake to Visa
Visa Inc (V.N) will buy a significant minority stake in Nigerian payments platform Interswitch, creating “an instant acceptance network across Africa” that will help drive expansion, both companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Perspective: Bridging the two fuels in an economy: energy and finance
An energy revolution is under way. Globally, renewables-based electricity capacity has seen more investments than fossil fuels in the past three years. Yet, many remain wary of investing in renewable energy particularly in developing countries, which have large untapped potential for both solar and wind energy. These are generally perceived as challenging markets in which to operate, especially by risk-averse investors. So, why do clean energy investments continue to be viewed as risky, despite evident trends pointing to the contrary?
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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