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Tech Startups Are Flooding Kenya With Apps Offering High-Interest Loans
Tala has made $1 billion in microloans to people in developing countries, all using its app. It says it can reach those who’ve been ignored by banks, because its software generates instant credit ratings from data scraped off prospective borrowers’ phones. The company is part of the financial-inclusion movement, a loose coalition of tech companies, banks, and nongovernmental organizations trying to lift people out of poverty by offering them new ways to gain access to loans and other financial services.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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New Technologies Have Historically Led to Increased Inequality—Not Anymore
New developments can be an amazing social equaliser: 3D printing is democratising manufacturing, while mobile banking provides easy access to banking services and increases the earning power of small businesses. But access to technology often dictates what opportunities are available.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Press Release: Financial Inclusion in West Africa Gets a Boost With New $10M Raise by Aella Fintech
For millions of poor and low-income households, entrepreneurs, and nascent businesses in West Africa without access to financial institutions, micro-lending fintechs like Aella provide a broader array of financial products — savings, insurance, payments and specialized loans, focused on lifting many out of poverty. Aella plans to use this funding to scale its lending operations and expand its product base into payments.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Mexico Digital Bank Stori Raises $10 Million USD and Launches Inclusive Digital Credit Card
Highly concentrated in the super-prime space, the banking industry has underserved the Mexico mass population. Only about 40% of the nearly 130 million population have bank accounts, and less than 15% of consumers have access to bank provided lending. In addition, most banks have not caught up with the digital transformation and are not able to provide a compellingly simple and good customer experience.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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Facebook Libra’s Promise of Financial Inclusion ‘Doesn’t Sound Right,’ Says Mastercard CEO
The CEO of Mastercard has revealed why the company pulled out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, saying he “doesn’t understand how it works”.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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The Power of Individuals: Why Formal Institutions Aren’t the Only Ones Driving Africa’s Innovation and Fintech Space
There’s a lot of attention on the businesses, NGOs and other institutions reshaping Africa’s fintech ecosystem. But there are equally important efforts underway – conducted not by institutions themselves, but by the individuals working within them – to build bridges between organizations, and create support networks for entrepreneurs and innovators. In this Q&A, Zianah Muddu, General Secretary of the Africa Fintech Network, discusses the pivotal – often overlooked – impact of this work.
- Categories
- Finance
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Press Release: WorldRemit Partners with Wizall Money to Launch its First Mobile Money Transfer Service to Senegal
Using the WorldRemit app, customers in over 50 countries can now send money instantly to over 60,000 Wizall Money mobile accounts in Senegal.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Mobile Money Is Taking Over the Finance Sector in Ghana, Records Massive Growth in 2019
Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlements System report has shown that the movement of funds from bank accounts into mobile money wallets or accounts recorded 1224% growth in 2019.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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