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In Pakistan, Savings Circles Beat Banks
Ali has been selling wall clocks and wristwatches in a crowded Karachi market for 15 years. He’s been participating in savings circles with fellow shopkeepers for just as long, and has used the proceeds to buy a car and acquire a new store.Now he’s a few months away from getting 400,000 rupees ($4,100) from a savings group of 16 shopkeepers into which he’s been paying 1,000 rupees a day for almost a year. He plans to put a down payment on an apartment. “This system is flawless,” says Ali, 35, who goes by one name. “You can never save this way without this binding commitment of making payments every day or every month. At banks there are hassles and procedures that waste time. This is simple. The organizer comes to collect the money himself, and because of the trust element, it’s a given that we’ll get the money.”
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- North Africa & Near East
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Calvert Foundation’s ‘Accessible, Reliable’ Road for Impact Investing: CEO Lisa Hall discusses options for engaging investors
Calvert Foundation is at the apex of impact investing. As an organization, it has a lot to share in the way of knowledge and expertise, which is why I’m excited to announce that Calvert Foundation will be joining NextBillion as our most recent content partner. For an overview on the nonprofit lender’s 17-year history and for a sense of what’s next for both Calvert Foundation and the broader impact investing sector, I spoke with President and CEO Lisa Hall.
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- Entrepreneurship
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Innovative Banking Strategies for the BoP in India: Exploring ‘No Frills Accounts’ and the business correspondent model
In India, commercial banks have begun to comply with financial inclusion mandates, leading to innovative—though far from perfect—strategies to bank the poor. Yet even if promoting social inclusion may not be part of a bank’s business philosophy, the potential market for banking the global informal economy—estimated to be worth around $10 trillion annually—should speak for itself.
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