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Mobile Lending App Branch Partners With Visa, Announces $170 Million In Fresh Funding
Branch International, a fintech startup that assesses creditworthiness using smartphone data, has raised $170 million in Series C financing and announced a new partnership with Visa.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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M-Pesa helps drive up Kenyans’ access to financial services – study
The proportion of Kenya’s population with access to formal financial services rose to 83 percent from 75 percent in 2016, driven largely by mobile technology, a survey part-conducted by the central bank showed on Wednesday.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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UN report highlights Afghanistan’s mobile money stumbling blocks
In the report, UNCTAD found: “The main drivers for mobile money are the ease and security of non-cash payments and the positive reputations of the telecommunication firms in the country. Having said this, the mobile money penetration in Afghanistan is relatively low.”
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Women Helping Women: How a Network of Female Digital Finance Agents is Boosting Empowerment in India
Digital finance has made great strides in India, but many women remain excluded – especially in rural areas. Grameen Foundation India is tackling this issue with a unique, digitally driven social enterprise model that harnesses the untapped potential of rural women, training them as field agents to extend digital finance to other women (and men) in their communities. Tanvi Gupta explores how these agents are empowering hundreds of thousands of women with access to financial services – while also generating needed income for themselves and their families.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Sierra Leone launches competition on financial inclusion
The Sierra Leone FinTech Challenge 2019-2020 aims to harness the growing digital economy in order to develop and test innovative solutions as a way to leapfrog access to finance, and consequently build out government and private sector platforms to operationalize the benefits of the digital economy, the partners said in a joined statement published on Friday.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Key to Financing the SDGs: UN Task Force Seeks New Ideas for Digital Finance – Here’s How You Can Contribute
Most people know about the gap in financing the Sustainable Development Goals – estimated at around US $2.5 trillion per year. Yet few people seem to know what to do about it. According to Tillman Bruett, Secretariat Director for the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on the Digital Financing of the SDGs, solving this problem will require creative new financing models – and the digital revolution may provide the answer. He discusses the UN's new call for ideas about how digital finance can help fund the SDGs – and invites all interested parties to respond.
- Categories
- Finance
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Moving the World Toward Meaningful Financial, Social and Economic Inclusion: Welcoming Our Newest Partner, MicroSave Consulting (MSC)
NextBillion is proud to announce our newest partner: MicroSave Consulting (MSC). The organization is a boutique consulting firm that has been a leading voice in financial inclusion for 20 years – and we have worked with them informally for years to share their insights and analysis with our readers. As we expand these collaborations into a formal partnership, we're looking forward to boosting our coverage of MSC's ongoing efforts to push the world towards meaningful financial, social and economic inclusion, unlocking the benefits of financial access for low-income customers.
- Categories
- Finance
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This Mobile App Backed by Jack Ma Is Mimicking Ant Financial
Mynt, the Philippine mobile payments operator backed by billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, plans to roll out insurance products en route to becoming a sprawling financial services platform in its Chinese ally’s image.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech
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