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Dollar by Dollar or Goat by Goat: How Financial Health Translates Across Oceans
The Center for Financial Services Innovation, in partnership with the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, explored how a U.S.-oriented financial health framework could translate into a developing world context. They discovered that the concept of financial health resonates just as strongly in lower-income countries as it does in the United States.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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First FinTech Fund for Inclusion of the Underserved Raises $141 Million
The first FinTech fund created to help the underserved has closed, reaching millions in capital contributions, which will go toward people and companies who need assistance in the financial sector.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, Institute of International Finance and MetLife Foundation Launch Project to Help Banking Industry Overcome Barriers to Financial Inclusion
The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI), the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and MetLife Foundation, together with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as a technical partner, announced today a two-year initiative to help advance the financial services industry’s ability to reach unserved and underserved populations. The project, titled Mainstreaming Financial Inclusion: Best Practices, will facilitate learning and action on how financial institutions can respond to the specific challenges of reaching lower income market segments. Through research, knowledge exchange, best practices, real world examples and expert insights, the project will identify and transmit practical guidance that financial institutions can use to expand quality services to the poor.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
- Tags
- Accion, banking, financial inclusion
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Accion Venture Lab: Fintech Lenders Leveraging Technology to Close Critical Funding Gap for Small Businesses
Accion Venture Lab, the seed-stage investment initiative of financial inclusion leader Accion, released a report today on the latest innovations in the field of micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) finance. The report explores how innovative, tech-enabled lenders are using niche marketing, digital or mobile platforms, and enterprising partnerships – and often a combination of all three – to make financing available to underserved MSMEs.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Investing
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Accion Venture Lab Completes First Successful Exit in India-Based Lender Varthana, Generating Financial and Social Returns
Accion Venture Lab, the seed-stage investment vehicle of financial inclusion leader Accion, announced today that it has successfully exited an investment for the first time. Venture Lab has sold its stake in Varthana, a company providing specialized loans and support to affordable private schools in India, promoting access to and the quality of education for India's poor and emerging middle class.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
- Region
- South Asia
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Smart Campaign and The MasterCard Foundation in Partnership to Advance Consumer Protection in Financial Services
"It's important to certify the practices of individual financial institutions, but we will not create wholesale, sustainable change until we galvanize the support all of the partners involved in serving low-income people, including regulators and new, technology-based service providers. We must also make a concerted effort to champion the client's perspective," said Isabelle Barrès, Director of the Smart Campaign.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
- Tags
- Accion, financial inclusion, fintech
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Global Microscope Highlights Gains in Financial Inclusion and Digitization of Financial Services
Financial inclusion is now on the global agenda and is understood to be a critical foundation in the improvement of livelihoods, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) 2016 Global Microscope on Financial Inclusion. More than half of the 55 countries studied improved their enabling environment for financial inclusion in all areas in the past year.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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What is Lost in a Digital Financial World — And How to Get it Back
As we work to extend financial services to the two billion financially excluded people around the world, we must rely on digital financial services. But vital as they are to financial inclusion, in the transformation to digital interfaces, valuable personal connections between financial service providers and customers are lost. Elisabeth Rhyne explores what exactly is lost, and how that loss can be mitigated or replaced.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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