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Crypto Titans Announcing Libra Clone Targeting 5.6 Billion for Financial Inclusion
Move over Libra. Facebook’s controversial stablecoin initiative has a new challenger that wants to change the financial system and reimagine how people can gain access to services. Fifty top companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry have launched a new platform called Celo, an open blockchain that’s designed to drive significantly more financial inclusion by reaching people around the world – not through banks, branches and traditional institutions – but through 5.6 billion smartphones.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Press Release: Financial Inclusion in West Africa Gets a Boost With New $10M Raise by Aella Fintech
For millions of poor and low-income households, entrepreneurs, and nascent businesses in West Africa without access to financial institutions, micro-lending fintechs like Aella provide a broader array of financial products — savings, insurance, payments and specialized loans, focused on lifting many out of poverty. Aella plans to use this funding to scale its lending operations and expand its product base into payments.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Leveraging Blockchain for Good: A Q&A with Ken Weber, Head of Social Impact at Ripple
Blockchain has been sparking social innovation for years – and much of it has focused on payments. Ripple has been an innovator in this space since 2012, leveraging its blockchain-powered payment technology to enable international remittances through a network that now spans over 40 countries and six continents. In this Q&A, Ken Weber, Ripple’s Head of Social Impact discusses the company's multi-faceted efforts to "advance socially responsible and equitable uses of blockchain, cryptocurrency and related technologies.”
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Press Release: Ethereum Classic Labs Commits $1 Million in Partnership With UNICEF Innovation Fund to Promote Blockchain-Based Social Impact Solutions
ETC Labs will directly invest $750k in global startups that have graduated from the UNICEF Innovation Fund. In addition to the cash investment, the cohort of blockchain companies selected from the UNICEF Innovation Fund portfolio will receive support for project creation from the acclaimed developer team at ETC Labs Accelerate.
- Categories
- Technology
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Vodafone Is the Eighth Company to Quit Facebook’s Digital Currency Project
British telecommunications firm Vodafone has pulled out of the Libra Association, raising further doubt that the digital currency will get off the ground this year as planned.
- Categories
- Finance
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Viewpoint: How Emerging Markets Will Be Disrupted by Tech
Candidate disruptive technologies include automation, artificial intelligence, aeroponics, block chain, batteries, clean energy, drones, stem cells, 3-D printing and virtual reality. The repercussions should these technologies gain traction are far from straightforward for emerging and frontier markets.
- Categories
- Technology
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Rise of Blockchain in Indonesia Brings Promise of Greater Financial Inclusion
A lot of the credit for the contemporary burgeoning blockchain community in the country goes to startups like Blockchain Zoo, the first company to offer blockchain consultancy services in the country and Blockchain Space Asia, both of which are founders of the blockchain association in Indonesia.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Press Release: Blockchain Start-up Proof of Impact Announces Close of Investment Round led by Franklin Templeton
This first investment round allows Proof of Impact to continue its fast growth and execute its ambitious goal of securitizing proven impact and bringing proven impact investment products to global capital markets.
- Source
- Press Release
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Tags
- blockchain, impact investing, SDGs, startups
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