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Vodafone’s M-Pesa Mobile Money Service Goes Live in Albania
Vodafone Albania officially launched the M-Pesa mobile payment service during a press conference held in the capital Tirana. Vodafone Albania is the second Vodafone operator in Europe to offer the service, following Vodafone Romania in April 2014.
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- Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Viewpoint: Contributory Social Security Schemes Launched Last Week in India Could Be Game Changers
The prime minister launched three welfare-enhancing pension and insurance schemes on May 9. In a country where less than 10 per cent of the population has insurance cover and almost nobody in the unorganised sector has a pension plan, these three schemes are expected to play a significant role in providing social security for the poor.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Financial Inclusion in Africa: “Things Are Further Behind Than People Think”
Plenty of progress has been made on increasing the size of Africa’s banked population. The trouble is, from the amount of noise that is made about the topic, you would be forgiven for thinking we had fixed the problem when we really haven’t.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: India’s Financial Inclusion Schemes Are Fine, but Why Is the Government Not Addressing Banks’ Quality, Cost Concerns?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team at the NDA government deserve their due share of credit for initiating efforts to bring a large segment of India’s population to insurance, pension cover at cheaper cost, even as the Congress is crying foul of repacking old UPA ideas.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Relief Through Finance: How microfinance builds resilience to disasters and crises
After a natural disaster or other crisis, like Nepal’s recent earthquake, the relief and aid community inevitably plays a major role. But according to Sam Mendelson, there is also a vital role for microfinance, which can help restore livelihoods and provide resilience to vulnerable populations thanks to existing relationships with clients that foreign NGOs lack.
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- Impact Assessment
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In Africa, Mobile Money Is on the Move
Moving money across African borders with the click of a cellphone button just keeps getting easier. The mobile money revolution – essentially the use of cellphones to access financial services – is already transforming the face of financial inclusion on the continent.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Tanzania: Mobile Banking Deepens Financial Inclusion
One of the drivers of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) by 7.0 per cent last year was financial intermediation, speeded up by inclusive financing.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Could Stellar Be the Answer to Enable Financial Inclusion Around the Globe?
When the internet first came round in the mid-nineties, people didn’t expect to see impactful tools like open-source libraries like Wikipedia or renting sites like AirBnb or car-sharing ones such as Uber and Lyft. As an open tool, the internet has laid the foundation for these products to be born, reaching audiences far and wide with powerful applications that impact most of our daily lives, whether we like it or not. But a lot of important industries have been left behind in the process. This, however, might be starting to change.
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa