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Promoting Financial Inclusion in the Caribbean: A Broken ATM in the Bahamas Reveals the Need for Digital Banking Solutions Across the Region
Imagine if your only access to your salary and savings depended on a single ATM. Now imagine that someone takes a hammer and smashes it up. As Nicholas Rees at Kanoo Pays explains, that was the situation facing a community in The Bahamas after vandals damaged the district’s sole ATM. He discusses the challenges experienced by remote, cash-dependent populations across the Caribbean, and explores how Kanoo Pays' digital wallet leverages offline payment capabilities and Central Bank Digital Currencies to address these customers' unique needs.
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- Finance, Technology
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The Future of Digital Credit: A Recent Report Explores How to Make its Second Decade More Impactful Than its First
The first online lending platforms began emerging roughly two decades ago, and since then, the global digital credit market has grown to reach many formerly excluded customers. But according to Dan Cassara, previously at CEGA, this growth has raised concerns about over-indebtedness, exploitation and scams. As the market looks toward the coming decades, he shares a recent report that investigates digital credit — particularly Mobile Instant Credit and airtime loans — and explores approaches that can better protect consumers and support their financial health.
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- Finance, Technology
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Inclusion Requires Interoperability: Why All Digital Financial Services Should be Interoperable
As of 2021, there were 1.4 billion financially excluded people globally — over 1 billion fewer than there were in 2011. As Briana Marbury at the Interledger Foundation explains, mobile money and other digital financial products and services have helped to drive this progress, reaching populations that have traditionally been excluded. But she argues that this momentum has highlighted an emerging issue that could limit the impact of the growth in financial inclusion: the lack of interoperability between digital systems.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Taking Stock of India’s Fintech Landscape: A Venture Capital Firm Shares Six Insights from One of the World’s Most Vibrant Investment Markets
The global team at Quona Capital — a venture capital firm focused on inclusive fintech — recently concluded a visit to India, during which they immersed themselves in the local fintech ecosystem. Michel Zaidler at Quona shares six insights they gathered from several of their Indian portfolio companies, and from these companies' customers and other fintech thought leaders. He highlights some of the groundbreaking business models these fintechs are using, and explains why the Indian market offers unique opportunities to investors.
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- Agriculture, Finance, Investing, Technology
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Report: The Capital Women Need, for the Future We All Need
Melinda French Gates pens the foreword to a new paper that addresses the need to expand access to affordable credit for women entrepreneurs in the Global South.
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- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Africa’s Top Fintech Player Is Getting Ready for an IPO
Flutterwave, the Nigeria-based digital payments company and Africa’s most valuable startup, has made changes to its corporate team as part of moves aimed at preparing for an initial public offering.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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MTN and Investec Partner to Bring PayShap to Mobile Money, Driving Financial Inclusion in South Africa
The partnership represents a major breakthrough in expanding financial services to South Africa’s unbanked population.
- Categories
- Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: DFC and IDB Invest Expand the Americas Partnership Platform by Creating a New Co-Financing Framework to Promote Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and IDB Invest launched a new co-financing framework that furthers their collaboration to support high-impact development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Categories
- Finance