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Social Funds Tie Pay to Impact
Plenty of investment professionals have their compensation tied to hitting specific financial targets. But does that metric make sense for increasingly popular socially responsible funds?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Indian MFIs Say All Is Now Well in Loan Repayment
While India’s cash-dominated microfinance sector was reeling under stress following the recall of high value currencies, sector leaders such as Ujjivan Financial Services and Bharat Financial Inclusion have come forward to defuse concerns raised by stakeholders.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Borrowers may exploit loophole as eight MFIs transition to small banks in India
The transition of eight microfinance institutions (MFIs) to small finance banks has opened a new source of loans for their customers and potential worries on their repayment capacity.
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- Impact Assessment
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America’s Poor Still Lack Access to Basic Banking Services
Despite a sprawling and varied financial industry, more than one-quarter of Americans don’t have adequate access to basic banking tools, such as checking accounts, credit cards, or loans for instance. That group—known as the underbanked—is made up of those who suffer the most from growing inequality and systemic marginalization: Americans with low incomes, those with less than a college degree, and minorities.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- North America
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Opinion: The Achilles’ Heel For Payments Banks And Financial Inclusion
The RBI's latest operating guidelines for payments banks permit payments banks to "use KYC done by the promoter / promoter group entity", if it "is of the same quality as prescribed for a banking company". This will allow payments banks to leverage their existing telco customer base, and (where KYC has been done to prescribed standard) send out SMSs offering to open an account at the click of a button.
- Categories
- Technology
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Weekly Roundup: India’s Demonetization Gets Ugly, Health Care’s Last Mile Gets Shorter and Coke Comes to Gaza
Indian Prime Minister Modi’s surprise move to ban 1,000 and 500-rupee notes early last month, ostensibly to crack down on black money, has mushroomed into a full-blown crisis. Are the financial inclusion benefits worth the cost? We explore this and many other topics in the roundup.
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- Health Care, Investing
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India’s demonetization makes low-deposit accounts ‘parking lots for black money’
Jan Dhan accounts, integral to the Modi government’s plan for financial inclusion and direct benefit transfer, were meant to have a transformational role in the uplift of the underprivileged, but, ironically, demonetisation has made them a parking lot for black money. Official sources told FE that these accounts saw transactions of R19,250 crore in the 10 days to November 19; over R15,000 crore was deposited and some R4,250 crore was withdrawn.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Accion Venture Lab: Fintech Lenders Leveraging Technology to Close Critical Funding Gap for Small Businesses
Accion Venture Lab, the seed-stage investment initiative of financial inclusion leader Accion, released a report today on the latest innovations in the field of micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) finance. The report explores how innovative, tech-enabled lenders are using niche marketing, digital or mobile platforms, and enterprising partnerships – and often a combination of all three – to make financing available to underserved MSMEs.
- Categories
- Investing