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Nigerian Smart Card Plant Supports Expansion of Financial Services to Poor
Responding to banks’ efforts to reach out to people who do not typically use financial services, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan this week inaugurated the first Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) certified smart card manufacturing plant in sub-Saharan Africa.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Bill and Melinda Gates Want to Fix Another Messy Global Problem: Banking
Bill and Melinda Gates have taken on some of the world’s messiest problems, funding projects to improve the design of toilets and condoms and even create urine-powered fuel cells. Now, in their annual letter published today, they’re outlining ambitions to tackle another messy sector: banking.
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- Uncategorized
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Opinion: Does the GSMA Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers Go Far Enough to Protect Consumers?
The recently launched GSM Association Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers is a welcome initiative. There is increasing recognition of the economic benefits that digital financial services can bring, along with an understanding that achieving ambitious financial inclusion targets may well depend on their rapid rollout. Such targets are being proposed by the World Bank, under the Maya Declaration and in other forums.
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- Uncategorized
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PRESS RELEASE: AfDB and Mastercard Seek to Broaden Financial Inclusion in Africa Through Digital Finance
On Thursday, January 22 in Davos, Switzerland, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and MasterCard announced a broad collaboration that aims to expand financial inclusion across the African continent. The collaboration seeks to develop solutions that drive inclusive growth in Africa by broadening access and usage of digital financial services.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Announcing NextBillion’s Latest E-book (and the first from NextBillion Financial Innovation): A compilation of posts and videos from our Impact Investing Insights series
In the spring of 2014, NextBillion Financial Innovation videotaped interviews with 11 top investors, academics and advocates working in impact investing. We published the Q&As in a series called Impact Investing Insights. We have compiled the posts and videos into this e-book, which covers a broad cross-section of the topics and trends that drive the sector today.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Many Universities ‘Failing to Address Public Health Needs of World’s Poor’
Most of the top-funded universities for medical science are not doing enough to address the needs of the world’s poorest people in terms of public health research, according to a new ranking.
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- Education, Health Care
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Reaching the Hardest-to-Reach: Financial Services for Overlooked Populations
The growth of microfinance solutions to address pressing development challenges has brought many of the world's formerly "unbanked" into formal financial systems. However, one group continually remains outside the system -- the poorest of the poor. Even some microfinance programs and deliberately inclusive financial policies remain unaffordable for segments of the population. Across the Global South, a number of initiatives have emerged with the notion that, although access to financial services has expanded in recent years, the remaining need demands innovative actions. We take a look at examples in Lagos, Bogotá, Cairo, and Bangalore.
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- Uncategorized
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Report: Mobile Money Could Be a Silver Bullet for Financial Inclusion in Africa
Mobile money is shaping up to be one of the most exciting areas in mobile communications, and is quickly transforming the way in which consumers and enterprises transact.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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