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Health Care Dominates Borrowing in Global South
With policyMakers in emerging market economies stepping up the focus on financial inclusion, India and China have seen the strongest growth in account ownership between 2011 and 2014. If the findings of the World Bank-Gallup Global Findex Survey 2014, which asked over 1,50,000 respondents in 143 countries how and why they access financial services, were to be plotted on a map though, there is a very clear North-South divide in terms of where people spend their borrowed money.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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From Interior Design to Microfinance in South Sudan
On a warm afternoon in this dirt-road town, 34-year-old Missy Williams sits on a plastic chair beneath a thatched roof in the center of a bustling market.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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IDB Loans $10M to Paraguay’s Vision Banco to Fund Water, Sanitation Facilities for Low-Income Populations
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a US-based multilateral finance institution that operates in Latin America and the Caribbean, recently approved a loan of USD 10 million to Vision Banco, a microfinance institution (MFI) in Paraguay. The loan will be disbursed from IDB’s Opportunities for the Majority Sector facility, which lends, invests equity, offers technical advice and provides partial guarantees and risk-sharing facilities to “companies, financial intermediaries … [and] non-profits that are willing to engage with the base of the socioeconomic pyramid”[4].
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Zimbabwe to Reform Banking Industry
Zimbabwe is finalising new laws aimed at strengthening its fragile banking industry through measures such as imposing shareholding restrictions and revamping oversight functions to guard against insider loans.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- lending
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This Indonesian Microfinance Startup Wants to Put Loan Sharks Out of Business
In Indonesia, 203 million people are classified as poor, living on less than US$4.50 per day. This group of consumers is not the section of the economic pyramid that conventional banks and insurance companies tend to prioritize, despite their making up the majority of the archipelago’s population. This is a problem Aidil Zulkifli, co-founder and CEO of UangTeman, hopes to solve.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Kiva Winding Down Kenyan Operations of Peer-to-Peer Microfinance Lending Platform Kiva Zip
Kiva, a US-based microfinance intermediary, recently announced that it is winding down its peer-to-peer microfinance lending platform Kiva Zip in Kenya. Since its inception in 2012, Kiva Zip has enabled users to lend directly to microentrepreneurs in Kenya and the US. Loans in Kenya are distributed through M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer service. Most of Kiva’s loans differ from those through Kiva Zip in that they are intermediated by microfinance institutions. As of 2015, Kiva Zip had received deposits from approximately 8,000 direct lenders and disbursed the equivalent of USD 1.8 million in local currency to approximately 6,500 borrowers in Kenya. As of the same date, Kiva Zip reported a repayment rate of 91 percent [1].
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Small Finance Banks Will Shift Focus of Microlending Away From Dedicated MFIs, Says Domestic Rating Agency in India
Small Finance Banks (SFBs) will shift the focus of the microlending business away from the dedicated micro finance institutions (MFIs), domestic rating agency India Ratings said today.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Crowdfunding: Ubuntu Finance in South Africa
Many South Africans dream of getting their concepts off the ground, but they lack the funding to make it reality. Too often their ideas are put on the back-burner for ‘one day’ – when they have accumulated enough wealth; when they finally secure that loan; or when the right investor shows up carrying a suitcase filled with cash.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- crowdfunding, lending
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