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Full Financial Inclusion in India? How the ‘JAM Trinity’ Can Help Businesses Make it a Reality
Changes in India’s financial inclusion ecosystem in the past 10 years have increased access, writes Prabhat Labh, CEO of Grameen Foundation India, but that's only part of the equation. More must be done to ensure poor families can actively use these services. Fortunately, the JAM trinity – Jan Dhan accounts, the Aadhaar ID system and mobile technology – has enabled completely new business models that scale processes for customer acquisition.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Financial Inclusion
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CompareAsiaGroup scores $50M from investors including IFC, Alibaba and Goldman Sachs
CompareAsiaGroup claims that more than 28 million people used its sites last year, making it the largest personal financial management platform in Asia.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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The Rise of a New Asset Class: Can ‘PAYGo Finance’ Connect Investors to Low-Income Customers?
Lendable has pioneered a marketplace lending platform that connects alternative lenders in East Africa with impact and institutional debt investors, to provide financing for leased assets like solar panels and motorcycles. According to BFA, providing these alternative lenders with structured debt financing could potentially give rise to a new asset class: PAYGo finance. If successful in raising funds from investors at scale, the Lendable approach could bring financing for low-income individuals full circle.
- Categories
- Energy, Financial Inclusion, Investing
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African startups slowly realize value of informal economies
The company’s chief executive officer (CEO) Vahid Monadjem says as one of the largest and least well-served parts of African economies there are numerous opportunities for companies offering solutions to informal markets. “The two areas that I see the most immediate opportunities are in financial services and logistics. Within financial services, payments is still a massive opportunity, and increasingly there are new opportunities becoming possible as payments rails go deeper such as micro-insurance, savings, on-demand products…” he said.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Want to Know How to Properly Measure Financial Inclusion? Copy the Retailers.
To better understand and measure how people use financial services, i2i looked outside the industry to the retail sector, which is at the forefront of how to collect and analyze data on how consumers engage with their services. In particular, retailers understand key usage indicators fundamental to their business; namely recency, frequency, monetary value and duration. That led i2i to apply these indicators while studying how to improve financial services.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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From Kentucky to Kenya: Celebrating Financial Inclusion’s Potential – And Facing its Limitations
The financial inclusion industry is arguably more innovative and attuned to the needs of low-income clients than ever before. But how much of an impact can it make in a world where the problems of poverty and income inequality increasingly plague not only low-income countries, but wealthy ones too? We discuss the issue as NextBillion's Financial Inclusion Month concludes.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, NextBillion Originals
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India’s most popular mobile wallet company is pushing to disrupt financial services with a new money market fund
Paytm recently became the second nonbank to leverage India's payment bank initiative, which works to give more consumers access to mainstream financial services. As part of the initiative, Paytm will be able to accept deposits, issue debit cards, and facilitate online transactions, but it won't be able to lend money to consumers.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Three Reasons Financial Health Matters – And Not Just for the Underserved
Forty-three percent of Americans struggle to pay bills and make credit payments, while 23 percent of workers making $50,000 to $99,999 a year are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and underserved Americans spend $141 billion in fees and interest to meet their financial needs. That's why, as the Center for Financial Services Innovation puts it, "Financial health matters to all of us." Today (June 27) CFSI and other mission-based organizations are celebrating #FinHealthMatters Day, to highlight what we all can do to improve financial health.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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