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India’s RBL Bank Completes Ownership of Microfinance Institution (MFI) Swadhaar Finserve with Equity Purchases from Accion, Individual Investors
For an undisclosed prices, RBL bought a 36-percent stake from US-based NGO Accion and a total of 4 percent from a group of unidentified individual investors.
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- Accion, banking, financial services, microfinance, MSMEs, SMEs
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Press release: New Report: Banks Increasingly Embrace Data to Reach Underserved Customers
The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), with the support of MetLife Foundation, released a report that examines how new types of data and new data tools present an unprecedented opportunity for financial service providers to understand and serve clients—particularly credit-seeking, "thin-file" clients who are otherwise excluded from the formal financial sector.
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The ‘Start Small, Stay Small’ Dilemma: How Nonprofit/Private Partnerships Can Boost Women-Owned Businesses
Women-owned businesses tend to start small and stay small, in part due to challenges accessing credit. They're also more likely to be discouraged from applying for financing for fear of being declined. Gina Harman, CEO of Accion's U.S. Network, and Andrea Jung, CEO of Grameen America, explain how their organizations are serving these entrepreneurs – and highlight some important ways this work can be expanded.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
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“Impact” versus “returns-driven” investing in Africa
2017 was the best year on record for African tech startups in funding terms, with 159 companies from across the continent securing a combined total of US$195 million.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The ‘Strange Bedfellows’ Myth: How Fintechs and Financial Institutions Can Partner for Mutual Benefit – And Greater Financial Inclusion
The classic tech-meets-tradition narrative often portrays fintechs and established financial institutions as natural adversaries. But research from the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) and the Institute of International Finance found quite the opposite to be true. CFI's Sonja E. Kelly explores the report's findings, which detail the surprising scope for collaboration among these players – and the potential impact on low-income customers.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Getting Real About Innovation: Why Accion’s U.S. Network Made the Leap to Digitize its Lending Operations
Technology can boost small businesses' access to finance, but can also risk trapping them in a cycle of debt. And for lenders serving lower-income entrepreneurs, these risks and rewards are more acute. Gina Harman, CEO of Accion’s U.S. Network, discusses its ambitious efforts to digitize lending operations across its national online platform in this podcast Q&A, exploring how established organizations can adapt to emerging technologies – without compromising their missions.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Finance
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Press release: Insurers Leverage New Technologies and Reinvent Business Models to Reach Underserved Consumers, Report Finds
The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), with the support of MetLife Foundation, today released a new report detailing the factors spurring inclusive insurance around the world. It reveals how both traditional and new insurers are breaking open new markets and reaching underserved customers through the use of innovative technologies, business models, product design, and partnerships, enabled by effective regulatory environments.
- Categories
- Finance
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The Financial Lives of Struggling Americans: The Financial Diaries and The Unbanking of America
Elisabeth Rhyne of the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion reviews two new books that take a look Americans' increasingly precarious financial lives. Both books examine America's top economic challenge – the crumbling of the economic foundation for many working-class and middle-class families – and they do so through the lens of financial services, an unusual but revealing perspective, Rhyne writes.
- Categories
- Finance
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