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Making it Easier to Go Digital: Lowering barriers to entry for pro-poor financial institutions in Uganda
In December 2014 Airtel Uganda launched a mobile banking service to allow bank customers to access their accounts through mobile money agents. These services allow pro-poor financial institutions to reach rural Ugandans, but forging these digital connections is complex. In the third post in their series on what it takes for microfinance institutions to go digital, Grameen Foundation explores ways to overcome this complexity.
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3 Key Risks in Going Digital – and How Microfinance Institutions Can Address Them: Grameen Foundation provides risk management tips for MFIs adopting mobile solutions
The speed and convenience that make digital services attractive to clients can bring a host of new risks for financial institutions that serve the poor. In the second post in their series on what it takes for microfinance institutions to go digital, Grameen Foundation explores some of these risks, and what MFIs can do to address them.
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Ratan Tata, Others Invest in Grameen Capital’s Social Impact Debt Funding Arm
Grameen Capital India, a social impact-focused investment advisory firm, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from a group of investors, including Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, the holding firm of Tata Group, for a new debt investment vehicle.
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment
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- South Asia
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You Need a Banking Law to Create a Bank for the Poor
Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and a proponent of 'social business', a not-for-profit business model to combat unemployment and other social evils, does not mince his words when it comes to micro-credit for the poor. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is dismissive about some recent innovations in the microfinance sector and warns about the direction they are taking. He also believes that micro-credit should be kept outside political influence to run it as a sound financial institution. "The best scenario," he says, "is when a micro-credit bank is owned by the poor." Excerpts from an interview with Shamni Pande:
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- South Asia
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INTERVIEW: Muhammad Yunus discusses the Indian microfinance industry
The Nobel laureate and founder of microfinance pioneer Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank says MFIs in India could be greedy and tapping the capital market or raising loans from private equity funds is a bad idea.
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- Uncategorized
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- South Asia
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Microfinance Goes Digital: Opportunities and challenges in enabling pro-poor financial institutions to connect to the digital ecosystem
Mobile financial services are finally moving beyond payments, with 26 mobile savings and 37 mobile credit services now live. But in spite of this progress, smaller microfinance institutions and other pro-poor organizations have been forced to watch from the sidelines for lack of resources. Grameen Foundation addresses this and other challenges in the first post in a series on what it takes for an MFI to go digital.
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Grameen Foundation USA Partners with MetLife Foundation to Provide Microfinance in Uttar Pradesh
Grameen Foundation US has partnered with MetLife Foundation to provide savings and other services to at least 40,000 poor and women clients in Uttar Pradesh.
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- South Asia
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Muhammad Yunus joins global public awareness campaign for solar
Visionary social entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus has joined the world's first global public awareness campaign for solar, SolarFUTURE.today.
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- Energy