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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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How Microfinance Can Impact Employment: Going Beyond Microloans to Microentrepreneurs
Though its focus has broadened in recent years, microfinance and employment have always gone hand-in-hand. In this video interview, Craig Churchill, head of the Social Finance Programme at the International Labour Organization, discusses how modern microfinance can better serve the low-income labor force – from supporting job-creating startups, to responding to poor labor practices among their clients.
- Categories
- Finance
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Mastercard Left Libra Association Over Regulatory and Viability Concerns, Says CEO
Banga said there were no obvious means for the Libra Association to become profitable or make money from its users. "When you don’t understand how money gets made, it gets made in ways you don’t like," he said.
- Categories
- Finance
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Press Release: Mexico Digital Bank Stori Raises $10 Million USD and Launches Inclusive Digital Credit Card
Highly concentrated in the super-prime space, the banking industry has underserved the Mexico mass population. Only about 40% of the nearly 130 million population have bank accounts, and less than 15% of consumers have access to bank provided lending. In addition, most banks have not caught up with the digital transformation and are not able to provide a compellingly simple and good customer experience.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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Paymob, Tamweely Team up to Empower Female Entrepreneurs
The #AcceptTheChange campaign will initially aim to empower 250 female merchants (and their female clients) by availing e-payment solutions that will allow the selected entrepreneurs to further benefit from a booming digital economy in Egypt.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Facebook Libra’s Promise of Financial Inclusion ‘Doesn’t Sound Right,’ Says Mastercard CEO
The CEO of Mastercard has revealed why the company pulled out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, saying he “doesn’t understand how it works”.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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The Power of Individuals: Why Formal Institutions Aren’t the Only Ones Driving Africa’s Innovation and Fintech Space
There’s a lot of attention on the businesses, NGOs and other institutions reshaping Africa’s fintech ecosystem. But there are equally important efforts underway – conducted not by institutions themselves, but by the individuals working within them – to build bridges between organizations, and create support networks for entrepreneurs and innovators. In this Q&A, Zianah Muddu, General Secretary of the Africa Fintech Network, discusses the pivotal – often overlooked – impact of this work.
- Categories
- Finance
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Off-Grid Solar Is Entering a New Era of Growth: GOGLA’s Off-Grid Solar Forum Explores Why
As the off-grid solar sector enters its second decade as a significant energy source, it's facing a host of new challenges, opportunities and growing pains. These dynamic changes will take center stage at the Global Off-Grid Solar Forum Expo, jointly organized by GOGLA (the global association for the off-grid solar energy industry) and the World Bank Group’s Lighting Global initiative next month in Nairobi, Kenya. GOGLA Executive Director Koen Peters shares why this conference won't be about rosy forecasts, but the real work of building the sector.
- Categories
- Energy
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