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Alibaba Partners with British Lenders as it Expands Financial Platform Reach
Alibaba, the Chinese internet conglomerate, has formed another strategic alliance to provide loans to businesses. Earlier this month Alibaba inked an agreement with Lending Club to facilitate loans to US businesses seeking to purchase goods from China manufacturers. Now Alibaba has created a similar arrangement with ezbob and iwoca in the United Kingdom. This is the first deal by Alibaba, using e-credit line, to help provide credit to SMEs in Europe.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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DAI, Souktel, and MFO Launch Mobile Financial Education Services with Facebook’s Internet.org
In low-income countries, good information about personal budgeting and saving is hard to find. Many people have limited schooling and little familiarity with financial institutions. Financial education efforts at the local level—often constrained by inadequate staff resources and transportation challenges—tend to be one-time events accessible only to a small slice of the population. Getting the information you need at the moment you need it is nearly impossible.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
- Tags
- education, Internet, mobile phones
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Facebook’s Internet.org Now Offering Free Connectivity to Millions in India
Internet.org is now available in India, Facebook said late Monday, potentially bringing Internet access to tens of millions of new users for the first time.
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- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Viewpoint: Stop Marketing, Start Elevating
The next five years will throw a lot of cold water on marketers, waking them up to a burning challenge. At the heart of it is a global tech-fuelled surge of power from brands to people, and today it is sweeping through a younger, assertive hooked-up India.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Weekly Roundup – 12/6/14: Overcoming paywalls, increasing information accessibility in the pursuit of a healthier planet
There’s been a good bit of discussion recently about the accessibility of health care information; specifically, the timely sharing of research on such topics as Ebola.
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- Health Care, NextBillion Originals, Technology
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Weekly Roundup 11-8-14: Alibaba is now bigger than Walmart, but will it benefit the still unconnected masses
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is now more valuable than Walmart. At the same time, Google, Mozilla and mobile operators are making a big push to connect people in emerging markets with content in local languages. Are we finally seeing connectivity, content and dialects finally align for the BoP?
- Categories
- NextBillion Originals, Technology
- Tags
- Internet, technology, Weekly Roundup
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Kenya’s Wananchi Group raises $130m for African expansion
Kenya’s Wananchi Group, which owns the Zuku pay-TV and fibre brands, has raised US$130 million in funding to expand in East and Southern Africa.
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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4.4 billion people around the world still don’t have Internet. Here’s where they live
The world wide web still isn't all that worldwide. An exhaustive new study by McKinsey & Company (really, it's 120 pages long) about the barriers to Internet adoption around the world illuminates a rather surprising reality: 4.4 billion people scattered across the globe, including 3.2 billion living in only 20 countries, still aren't connected to the Internet.
- Categories
- Education, Technology