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The Rural Credit Rush in India
Data released by Microfinance Institutions Network, a national body for non-banking finance company-micro finance institutions (NBFC-MFIs), shows that NBFC-MFIs, which focus on lending in rural India, account for the largest chunk of the loan portfolio of the microfinance industry.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Financial inclusion is fast losing steam in India
If financial inclusion efforts are to be fully harnessed and taken forward, the regulator and banks will have to work in cohesion with local government agencies to educate masses on a large scale, highlighting rights and responsibilities.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Open the Spigot: The Way We Think About Impact Investing is Too Narrow
You hear about it all the time in impact investing reports, articles and blogs: The lack of deal flow. But Tanner Taddeo of ChangeSquare believes the industry's challenge isn't a lack of investible companies, but rather the industry’s narrow definition of impact and how it "blinds" investors to companies that are creating impact in other industries and geographies. Taking a more holistic, rather than plug-and-play approach, will contribute to a broadening definition of impact and subsequently open the spigot for deals, he argues.
- Categories
- Investing
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How Does Digital Finance Impact Low-Income Clients? Insights From a New ‘Evidence Gap Map’
Digital finance can help people live happier, healthier and more prosperous lives – but those outcomes are not inevitable. And the more data we have about the effects of various digital finance products, the better those products will be, says Niamh Barry at Caribou Digital. That’s why the Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa created the Digital Finance Evidence Gap Map, which now includes 55 studies covering 60 products. Barry highlights some key insights from the research, and how it can boost the sector’s social impact.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Press release: Credit Suisse joins with CGAP on the application of digital finance to alleviate poverty
Credit Suisse, one of the world's leading financial services providers, is partnering with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) to support its work in building inclusive and responsible financial systems that help people move out of poverty, protect their economic gains and advance the broader global development agenda.
- Categories
- Finance
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How Informal Employment in Emerging Markets is Boosting Fintechs in Alternative Lending
The informal sector, which official GDP does not reflect, holds a significant share in the economies of developing countries. At the same time, if the volume of goods and services produced informally is rarely more than 40 percent of the official GDP, then the share of people employed off the books can be incomparably higher.
- Categories
- Finance
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Central Bank of Nigeria unveils strategy to achieve 80% financial inclusion
The CBN stated that “the major goal of this revised strategy is to reduce the proportion of adult Nigerians that are financially excluded to 20 percent in year 2020 from it baseline figure of 46.3 percent in 2010.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mexico launches major initiative to boost financial sector
"The main objectives of these actions are to increase the coverage of the financial sector and promote liquidity in the stock market, introduce a more efficient payment system for the population, and overall, facilitate and promote savings mobilization, channeling them into productive investments," read a press release from the finance ministry.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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