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IIM Amedabad’s CIIE launches $25 million Bharat Inclusion Initiative
IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) has launched the Bharat Inclusion Initiative, with a commitment of $25 million from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The initiative will focus on incubating and backing startups that work in areas such as financial inclusion, livelihood, education and health.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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More College = Less Poverty: The Impact of Peer-to-Peer Lending
More than 57 million students globally are qualified but have not enrolled in higher education, mostly because they lack the money. Yet banks often don't want to lend to them, due to their lack of collateral, uncertain earning potential and long repayment periods. That’s why Ryker Labbee and Kirk Acevedo launched peer-to-peer student lender Zomia, targeting nearly 1 million potential college students in Myanmar and Cambodia. They explore how the model could scale into other markets and reduce poverty.
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Ghana unveils mobile money interoperability platform
Mobile money interoperability went live in Ghana following a number of delays, a step hailed by the country’s Vice President for propelling the country into one of the global leaders for the technology.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Visa and FICO rewrite their playbooks to go after global unbanked
Across the globe, many different populations have distinct reasons for being unbanked. To reach these audiences, mainstream financial companies are discovering approaches that wouldn't be possible in the U.S.
- Categories
- Finance
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Financial inclusion is making great strides
In both rich and poor countries, financial technology, or fintech, is already seen as the dominant force behind the big advances of recent years recorded in the Findex
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Digital Remittances: Now that they’re here, where are they headed?
Economic migrants send US $600 billion back to their home countries each year, most using expensive "traditional" agent networks, despite the availability of cheaper digital channels. But Xavier Martin Palomas with the Digital Frontiers Institute notes that in the past five years, we've seen a new wave of players and a renewed push toward digitizing remittances. Next month the Digital Frontiers Institute will launch its first course, Remittances in the Digital Age, to study the rapidly changing industry.
- Categories
- Finance
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Pairing access to finance and energy to solve global poverty
Pairing access to finance with access to energy can help more than a billion people raise their standard of living, banish poverty to the past and no longer be counted among the unbanked.
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Advances and lessons learned from BIM, Peru’s first mobile money wallet
BIM recently announced its plans to launch new services in the second half of 2017. It will enable customers to pay electricity, water and telephone bills, as well as have access to micro savings, loans, and microinsurance.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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