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Brazil’s Neon Raises $129 Million in Series E Extension Round
Founded in 2016, Neon provides digital accounts, credit cards, personal loans, and investment products to customers in Brazil.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Ecobank Group and Google Cloud Announce Partnership to Accelerate Financial Inclusion and Innovation Across Africa
Google Cloud technologies aims to strengthen Ecobank’s platform for enhanced digital banking, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) support, and economic development on the continent.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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From COVID to Foreign Aid Cuts: How Community-Led Financial Access Can Help Women and Their Communities Weather Crises
The COVID pandemic had a substantial impact on women’s financial access in many emerging economies — an impact that persists to this day. Now, as Kathy Guis at Kiva explains, a new crisis is building, as foreign aid cuts and broader macroeconomic uncertainty reduce funding to financial service providers focused on women’s inclusion. She argues that despite the urgency of other global issues, access to financial services matters, and explores how Kiva hopes to grow its support for women and other vulnerable populations despite the challenging funding environment.
- Categories
- Finance
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Wave Raises $137 Million in Debt to Expand Mobile Money Services Across Africa
Wave's mobile-first approach, centred on low fees, has helped bring millions of previously unbanked individuals into the formal financial system.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Paymenow Bags $22.4 Million to Expand On-Demand Salary Services Across Africa
The funding, structured under a sustainable finance format, is one of the largest institutional bets to date on the earned wages access (EWA) model in the region.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- financial inclusion, fintech, lending, scale, startups
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Bfree Attracts $3 Million in Fresh Funding from Verdant Capital Hybrid Fund
The investment will support Bfree’s distressed loan portfolio financing in Africa, thereby improving the credit scores of the distressed borrowers, enabling them the access to credit from financial institutions in the future.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: 60 Decibels Study Finds Loans to Savings Groups Contribute to Stronger Financial Resilience in Africa
Through VisionFund’s Finance Accelerating Savings Group Transformation (FAST) programme, the study has demonstrated that access to capital combined with financial education can help businesses grow.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Airtel Money and TCDC Partner to Launch Digital Finance Drive for Tanzanian Farmers
Beyond direct payments, the partnership will facilitate access to affordable smartphones, offering a gateway to the digital economy for many who were previously underserved.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa