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Beyond Microcredit: Why Tackling Poverty Requires More Than a Loan
It's clear that microcredit is not enough to end poverty, say Gary Carrier and Harrison Pharamond of MCE Social Capital. But this does not stop MCE from investing in microfinance institutions. Instead, they maximize the impact of these investments by supporting MFIs in offering “credit-plus services” - additional services that address poverty holistically.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Fintech Major Mastercard Launches Its First Innovation Center In India
The India Innovation Centre Mastercard Labs will join hands with other financial institutions and merchant partners to identify and ideate futuristic digital payment solutions, to better safety and security.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Three Key Insights from GIIN Report on the Power of Capacity Building in Impact Investing
Capacity-building support, also known as technical assistance, is a vital tool used by many investors to complement their investments and expand and deepen their impact. When applied well, capacity building improves investor competitiveness, enhances business performance of investees, expands impact for beneficiaries and strengthens markets, writes Abhilash Mudaliar of GIIN.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Reserve Bank of India to Launch Financial Literacy Drive in Nine States
Six NGOs registered with the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund -- CRISIL Foundation, Dhan Foundation, Swadhaar Fin Access, Indian School of Micro Finance for Women (ISMW), Samarpit and the PACE Foundation -- have been selected to execute the pilot project in collaboration with banks.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Why Gyms Love January: Leveraging Behavioral Economics for Financial Health
People are famously irrational when it comes to financial matters. We can't seem to resist wasting money on things that we know aren't beneficial. Why do we make self-defeating financial decisions, and how can we be persuaded to change them? Evelyn Stark, financial inclusion lead at MetLife Foundation, discusses the ways financial service providers are leveraging behavioral science to help their clients spend less and save more, in the latest NextBillion podcast.
- Categories
- Finance
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IMF Releases the 2017 Financial Access Survey, Tracking Access to Financial Services
FAS data show progress in two indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals: the number of bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs), with most of the growth concentrated in Asia. However, some other regions still lag in these financial access dimensions.
- Categories
- Finance
- Tags
- financial inclusion, fintech, SDGs
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Ecobank launches mVisa across 33 African Countries
Ecobank has partnered with Visa to launch Ecobank Scan+Pay with mVisa solutions to their consumers. The strategic tie-up signals interoperability on a cross border level - and potentially huge gains - as it affords consumers with the ability to use their mobile phone to directly access the funds in their bank accounts to pay person-to-merchant (P2M) or person-to-person (P2P).
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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‘Cross-sell Done Well’: How One Finance App Found a Balance Between Digital and Human Touch
Field officers at the Sajida Foundation, a microfinance provider in Bangladesh, knew their clients had rich financial lives, and that some held sizable savings balances to enable their goals. They also knew these clients could earn more by converting their savings to a term deposit account. Yet it was difficult for them to offer complex financial advice, or to answer questions around tiered interest rates and differentiated products. The Foundation worked with BFA to develop an Android-based app to address these issues – Ashirul Amin discusses the lessons learned.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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