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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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What’s the future of mobile payments in Nigeria?
In March 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria shared its vision to achieve at least 80% financial inclusion by 2020.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Afghanistan enlists faith-based banks to aid financial inclusion
World Bank data shows that only 15 percent of adults in Afghanistan have a bank account, while 16 percent cite religious reasons for not having one.
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Viewpoint: Postal Service banking system possible in U.S. – if past pitfalls avoided
As of 2015, about 7 percent of U.S. households were “unbanked,” meaning that no one in the household had a checking or savings account. An additional 20 percent of households were “underbanked,” meaning that they relied, at least in part, on payday lenders, check cashing services, pawn shop loans, or other non-traditional sources for financial services.
- Region
- North America
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Better Data for Better Products: New Online Resource Aims to Close the $200 Billion Smallholder Finance Gap
The US $200 billion gap in farmer finance is a tremendous opportunity – but it's one that financial service providers are missing, due to the lack of transparent and reliable data. That's why One Acre Fund and MIX, with support from the Mastercard Foundation's RAF Learning Lab, launched the Smallholder Finance Product Explorer. A May 8 webinar will show industry actors how to use some of these new online tools to reach the 450 million smallholders in need of financing.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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Using big data to link poor farmers to finance
The global growth of microfinance banks has created new opportunities for financial inclusion, with outstanding lending of $100 billion to around 200 million clients. Yet the majority of lending from microfinance institutions has been to urban populations and not to the rural poor or small farmers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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Central Bank of Nigeria Captures 31 Million Nigerians in Bank Verification Number Project
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has captured no fewer than 31 million account customers in its Bank Verification Number (BVN) project aimed at ensuring unique identifier in the Nigerian banking industry.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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