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Findex: Sub-Saharan Africa Continues to Be the Leading Frontier of Financial Inclusion
Half of the world's population lives and works in the informal economy - not by choice, but by necessity. In the language of economists, poor families in developing countries are consumption-smoothing households and capital-consuming, self-employed entrepreneurs at the same time. As a result, they need a broader range of financial services to manage inevitably irregular income and expense spikes, accumulate working capital, build assets, and mitigate risks. Lacking better alternatives, they often resort to informal financial mechanisms, such as moneylenders, pawnbrokers, and rotating savings clubs, which can be very unreliable and expensive.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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India’s Street Dentists Filling Gap for the Poor
Ignoring noisy buses and curious onlookers, street dentist Allah Baksh plunges his hands into a patient's mouth to fit a sparkling set of dentures for $12 (S$16) in the Indian city of Bangalore.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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How Do You Know You’re Really Reaching the Poor?: Tips for microfinance providers considering digital services
Though many microfinance institutions operate in impoverished areas, they often have little or no objective poverty data on the clients they’ve reached. Pride Microfinance wanted to avoid this problem when it rolled out its digital financial services programs this year, so it worked with Grameen Foundation to measure its social impact. The lessons it learned can be valuable to other MFIs considering going digital.
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- Uncategorized
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Nigeria’s GTBank Introduces New “Short Code” Channel for Mobile Money Transfers
Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) said it is applying a breakthrough innovation to enable funds transfer on the mobile phone for the first time in Nigeria for the bank’s customers.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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India’s Jan Dhan financial inclusion drive hits customer service barrier
Creating new accounts is not enough. Banks’ behaviour towards low income clients is a major roadblock
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Twitter Top Ten
This week brought a number of developments in global health, social enterprise and financial inclusion - some promising, some disturbing, and one bittersweet. As usual, we’ve highlighted a sample of the reaction to these events on Twitter, along with some long-form pieces that vividly describe some of the big challenges and small triumphs in the sectors we cover.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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A Revolution in the Making: CGAP’s Greg Chen discusses how smartphones could transform financial inclusion and microfinance
Smartphone sales are exploding in emerging economies, with Latin America and the Middle East/Africa recording growth rates of 59 percent and 83 percent, respectively, last year. CGAP’s Greg Chen discusses how this new access could transform low-income people’s interactions with their financial services providers in this video Q&A, the latest in our series on the Future of Microfinance.
- Categories
- Technology
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Ecocash Users in Zimbabwe Can Now Make Mobile Money Transactions in Local Languages
Users of EcoCash, the mobile money offering of Econet Wireless, are now able to transact in local languages after the company announced new enhancements to the platform.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa