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Nigeria Establishes Mobile Money Agents Loan Scheme
The Central Bank of Nigeria announced it would facilitate loans of up to NGN500 million ($1.4 million) to mobile money agents and registered companies in the sector as part of a plan to boost financial inclusion.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Kenya, Rwanda top region in financial inclusion
Kenya and Rwanda have the highest proportion of their adult populations accessing financial services, a newly-published report says, making them East Africa’s most financially inclusive economies.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Learning from Financial Inclusion Research: What Should We Expect?
There is a real puzzle in the world of financial inclusion: Where’s the impact? The question is not unique to financial inclusion, but it is a particularly pressing one.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Kenyans turn to friends, relatives as lenders shy off
“Friends and family are the main financial solutions used by [a] majority of Kenyans when they run out of money to meet their day-to-day needs,” the survey found.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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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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OPIC commits $8 million to support small farmer microlending in Myanmar
Proximity Finance, which designs its loans to meet the particular needs of smallholder farmers, is the microfinance arm of Proximity Designs, a social enterprise dedicated to serving Myanmar’s rural families.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Don’t Fear the Algorithm: The Risks and Benefits Of Machine Learning in Finance
Billions of people around the world lack access to basic financial services, and far too many promising entrepreneurs are deprived of financial opportunities simply because they don’t have a credit history. As JUMO founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball sees it, this lack of access is fundamentally a technology problem – and machine learning can help solve it. But algorithm-assisted banking is not without risks: Watkins-Ball discusses its benefits and downsides, and how it's powering JUMO's work in Africa and Asia.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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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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