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Perspective: What the World Can Learn From India’s Cash Experiment
A report last month showed that 99 percent of invalidated bills have now made their way back to banks, suggesting the government's plan to extinguish illicit cash has foundered. At the same time, though, currency in circulation is down by about 25 percent from where it would otherwise have been, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, while electronic transactions are up.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Government’s BHIM app to be single point for all mobile payments in India?
The ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) is working on a multi-pronged strategy under which it plans to make the Bharat Interface for Money app, or BHIM, the single point for all mobile payments.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech
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Huge remittances milestone for Africa as TerraPay gets South Africa license
A mobile payments and remittances startup called TerraPay may have achieved what could turn out to be a huge industry milestone in the remittances space in Africa. The startup announced today that it has secured a license from the Reserve Bank of South Africa to conduct low-value international money transfers in the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Blockchain Is Kickstarting the Financial Lives of Refugees
Finland’s digital money system for asylum seekers shows what blockchain technology can offer the unbanked.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
- Tags
- blockchain, fintech, refugees
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Report says India is about to overtake China’s fintech
At more than twice the global average, China is currently the world leader in fintech service adoption, but current second-place India is expected to surpass its neighbor according to a report by EY (formerly Ernst & Young), a global accounting and consulting firm.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Aadhaar Pay yet to find base in India
Going beyond knowing your customer (KYC) application, have payments via Aadhaar taken off? According to recent figures, a majority of Indians are still using Aadhaar only for e-KYC verification and not day-to-day payments.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Fintech can cut remittance costs to a fraction
An estimated 800m people around the world are now directly reliant on remittances. According to research by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, global remittances to developing countries increased by 51% between 2007 and 2016 to reach almost half a trillion dollars a year – although the number of migrant workers from the countries in question rose by only 28% over the period in question.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, remittances
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Making a Case for the Business Case: New Ways to Provide Sustainable Financial Services to Low-Income Communities
The high numbers of people who participate in informal savings groups is appealing to financial service providers – there are hundreds of thousands of active groups whose self-selected members save weekly for a year, and share their accumulated savings – but it's not easy to tap into this market commercially. BFA recommends using a business case modeler to help acquire low-income people as customers in a sustainable way.
- Categories
- Finance