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Peter Thiel-Backed VC firm Invests in Mexican Neobank Albo as Demand Rises for Services for Unbanked
Albo offers online banking services to the country’s large unbanked population, and permits customers to open an account online within minutes and get a prepaid Mastercard tied to a phone app.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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Press Release: QuickCheck partners with Jumia & PayAttitude for further Financial Inclusion in Nigeria
QuickCheck’s affiliation with Jumia will allow customers to easily take loans on a mobile app they are already actively using.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Tech Revolution in Financial Inclusion is Excluding Last-Mile Customers: Here are Four Ways to Reach Them
The world is experiencing a surge in internet access, with almost 300 million new users in 2019 – and this growth is happening especially in developing countries. But in many communities, this access is unreliable and unevenly distributed, say Rodrigo de Reyes and Mauricio Romero at Fundación Capital – and this has serious repercussions for digital and financial inclusion. They explore four key ways to deal with this challenge when serving last-mile customers.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Africa’s Fintech Boom Is Creating Niche Ecosystems to Power the Industry’s Future Globally
Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos all rank among the top 100 cities for fintech ecosystems, keeping with a trend which sees nearly half of the top 100 cities located in emerging markets.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Brazilian FinTech Rebel Lands $10M For Affordable Loan Products
"Traditional banks claim that credit in Brazil is expensive because of delinquency rates; but in reality, delinquency is high because the country has the highest interest rates in the world. It is a perverse and vicious cycle, and a difficult one to overturn. That’s why we are rebels: Our goal is to break up with this loop and start a new and virtuous cycle.”
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- fintech
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Lessons From M-Pesa for Africa’s New VC-Rich Fintech Startups
Over the last decade, Africa has been in the midst of a startup boom accompanied by big growth in VC and improvements in internet and mobile penetration.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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From Heritage to Habit: Why Digital Remittances Languish in Some Cultures But Surge in Others
Thirty years after their introduction, digital remittances have failed to take off. Some 90% of remittances still begin as cash and end as cash - even when banks are the intermediary. Lack of trust, access and interoperability - to name just a few challenges - are keeping lower-income people tied to costlier cash transfers. However, remittance providers and related fintech entities are exploring many new avenues to encourage recipients to keep remittances in the digital ecosystem and possibly use them for other financial products, writes Steven Davidson with Mondato.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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This Digital Platform Fights Corruption by Bypassing the Officials Demanding Bribes
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the tax payment system could require many kickbacks to corrupt officials. A new digital platform lets people pay their taxes directly.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, governance
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