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Finding the Right Balance: A Toolkit for Regulating Digital Financial Services in Emerging Markets
The number of financially excluded adults has dropped from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 1.7 billion in 2017, thanks largely to digital financial services (DFS). However, finding the right regulatory balance for these services is not easy: Too much regulation can undermine the business case for DFS, while too little can leave consumers exposed. Anton Didenko and Ross Buckley at the University of New South Wales discuss a recent paper that seeks to address these challenges through a comprehensive analytical framework – what they call the Regulatory Diagnostic Toolkit.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Five Things We’ve Learned Creating Data Standards for Inclusive Fintech
It’s no secret that capital is flowing into fintech. In 2018, global fintech investments exceeded USD $100 billion. Yet this investment is highly concentrated among a relatively small group of companies. Blaine Stephens and Chrissy Martin Meier of MIX share five insights from a new research initiative based on 40 interviews with fintechs, investors and ecosystem actors, designed to drive capital to inclusive fintechs in hopes of reaching 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
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Paytm Dispels the Notion That Payments Banks Can’t Be Profitable in India
Nearly a third of all mobile banking transactions in India are powered by PPB and the firm claims it processes over Rs3 lakh crore worth of digital transactions annually, next only to the country’s largest lender State Bank of India.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Vodacom, Safaricom To Acquire Rights To Vodafone’s M-Pesa
The deal, for 12 million euro ($13.4 million), will allow both companies to save in royalties paid to Vodafone.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Kenyan Consortium Launches Mobile Banking App
CBK Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge said, "Until now, lending to MSMEs has been constrained by the lack of reliable information to assess their creditworthiness. The innovation in this product is the use of all data on customers' transactions to fill this gap. In that sense it is revolutionary."
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech, MSMEs
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Perspective: Will Facebook Make Crypto Relevant For The Underserved?
Earlier this month, the WSJ reported that Facebook is building a team and getting its crypto ducks in a row to launch a “cryptocurrency-based payments system on the back of its gigantic social network.” Public details on the effort are thin and may have been outshone by news that one of Facebook’s co-founders is calling for the company to break up. But the fintech world is predictably aflutter about the perils and opportunities of a brand new digital coin that could allow users to hold and send money safely and securely to nearly every socially networked person on the planet.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- cryptocurrency, fintech
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Microsoft Opens First $100 Million Africa Development Centre in Kenya and Nigeria
“The Africa Development Centre will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent. It will help us better listen to our customers, develop locally and scale for global impact,” Phil Spencer, Executive Vice President at Microsoft said.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, off-grid energy
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Financial Inclusion in Africa To Be Boosted Following Launch Of This New Fund
In a bid to continue supporting financial inclusion in Africa, Dubai-based Investment banking advisory firm Nimai has unveiled a USD 150 Mn fund in a partnership with Kenya’s Victoria Commercial Bank .
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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