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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
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- fintech
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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.
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How Flexible Financing, Solar Panels and Data Could Be Key to Financial Inclusion
With over 1 million units installed in the past four years, the PAYGo financing model is already unlocking significant growth for the off-grid solar industry. But the sector also faces formidable challenges. FIBR, a project by BFA in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, is exploring ways PAYGo solar can leverage data to make better point-of-sale decisions, customize product offerings, engage and retain agent networks, inform future follow-on products, and build linkages with other financial service providers.
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Sub-Saharan Africa to Surpass Half a Billion Mobile Subscribers by End of Decade, Finds New GSMA Study
“Sub-Saharan Africa will be a key engine of subscriber growth for the world’s mobile industry over the next few years as we connect millions of previously unconnected men, women and young people across the continent,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Cyber-threats increase as India goes cashless: Study
As India shifts to a cashless economy, cyber-threats are at a new high with the number of such incidents occurring in banking systems increasing in the last five years.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Why M-Akiba bond may present new headache to many banks in Kenya
The banks, which are already reeling from the effects of interest rates capping, now face huge competition on deposits from the bond, which gives 10 per cent interest a year, above the capped 7 per cent that banks are offering.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Visa pushes further into Africa
Visa has partnered with Interswitch, Africa's integrated payments and transaction solutions company, to bolster adoption of mVisa, the card network’s mobile payment solution, according to Vanguard.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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How Blockchains Could Revolutionize International Aid
It’s this sort of problem–a lack of traceability in aid–that encouraged Thompson to develop a system to transfer and track international development payments. AID:Tech is one of several startups working with blockchain technology, trying to ensure more funds go where they’re supposed to go. “Transparency is really needed in aid and welfare payments because there’s not a functioning system that works globally,” he says.
- Categories
- Technology
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