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Facebook Plans Own Mobile Money Wallet Based on New Libra Currency
Facebook has released more details of its planned currency Libra. The first product will be a digital wallet designed to make it easy to save, spend and transfer money over the internet. The wallet will be available in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a standalone app, with an expected launch in 2020, the company said.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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African Development Bank launches Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility
The African Development Bank and its partners on Wednesday launched the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI), designed to aid safety and expansion of digital financial transactions in Africa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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WorldRemit Intros Money Transfer Service for SMEs
According to WorldRemit, the new service will make it easier for local enterprises to receive payment by UK-based partners via their bank account or cash pick-up. While some banks can take up to one week to process payments, WorldRemit says its transfers to SA are processed within 24 hours or less.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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The Front Lines of the Digital Revolution: Reasons for Hope and Caution as India Rides the Fintech Boom
India is now the world's second biggest fintech hub, trailing only the U.S. Its digital payments market is set to grow to US $500 billion by 2020, with its overall digital economy predicted to reach 30% of the country’s GDP by 2025. According to Moin Qazi, this ongoing fintech revolution offers a preview of what global banking may look like a generation from now, delivering vast benefits to both providers and customers. But it isn't free of downsides – for both traditional financial institutions losing their market share to tech-based entrants, and for customers navigating new risks.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Big Challenge, Simple Solution: Could Bookkeeping Take India’s Small Businesses from Good to Great?
Small businesses tend to dream big and start small, but somewhere in the middle they do not grow. According to Vikas Kabra at Menterra, in his interactions with small merchants in India, he's noticed a surprisingly simple obstacle to their growth: a lack of bookkeeping. Out of hundreds of micro-merchants he has interacted with, barely any track their day-to-day business performance. Kabra discusses the problem, and calls for new tech-based solutions that could make bookkeeping fast, easy and approachable for small business owners.
- Categories
- Finance
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PalmPay, Visa Partner to Drive Financial Inclusion Across Africa
In a statement made available to The Guardian, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, Fintech and Ventures at Visa, Otto Williams, said the goal of advancing financial inclusion was the driving force for the collaboration, noting that the partnership would benefit consumers and merchants not previously addressed by traditional financial services across Africa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Finding the Right Balance: A Toolkit for Regulating Digital Financial Services in Emerging Markets
The number of financially excluded adults has dropped from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 1.7 billion in 2017, thanks largely to digital financial services (DFS). However, finding the right regulatory balance for these services is not easy: Too much regulation can undermine the business case for DFS, while too little can leave consumers exposed. Anton Didenko and Ross Buckley at the University of New South Wales discuss a recent paper that seeks to address these challenges through a comprehensive analytical framework – what they call the Regulatory Diagnostic Toolkit.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Kenyan Consortium Launches Mobile Banking App
CBK Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge said, "Until now, lending to MSMEs has been constrained by the lack of reliable information to assess their creditworthiness. The innovation in this product is the use of all data on customers' transactions to fill this gap. In that sense it is revolutionary."
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech, MSMEs