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Former Avon CEO Andrea Jung takes top spot at microfinance company Grameen America
The former head of Avon is now leading Grameen America, a group that provides small loans to poor women entrepreneurs in the U.S. Andrea Jung was CEO of the beauty products company from 1999 through April 2012 and served as chairman through the end of that year. Considered one of the most powerful women in business, she came under fire for failing to stem Avon's sales declines and left amid an overseas bribery investigation.
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- microfinance
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Commercial banks in India increasingly targeting low-income borrowers
At a time when microfinance institutions (MFIs) are getting into the banking business, commercial banks too have developed a liking for lending directly to the poor -- an area until now dominated by traditional MFIs and informal lenders.
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C S Ghosh: Tied to the bottom of the pyramid
Chandra Shekhar Ghosh has come a long way - from Tripura to Bangladesh to West Bengal to now the national scene. The microfinance organisation Bandhan, which he founded in 2001 and helped grow, has won the right to become a full-fledged commercial bank that can and will have its branches from Srinagar to Thiruvananthapuram in the not too distant future.
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Japanese microfinance fund seeks to assist small Peruvian farmers
A Japanese small-lot fund operator said Thursday it will launch a new fund with a credit cooperative in Peru to assist Peruvian small farmers, who lack access to financial services, to meet their daily farming needs.
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- Agriculture
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Zimbabwe’s Econet Launches Mobile Money Loan Service
Zimbabwean users of the mobile money platform, EcoCash, are now able to access urgent loans of up to $500 using their cellphones.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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India Announces First Bank Licences in a Decade
India on Wednesday announced it was issuing two new bank licenses for the first time in a decade as it accelerates a push to bring more Indians into the formal banking system.
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- South Asia
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Microfinance Can Be…: Month of Microfinance aims to “radically transform” microfinance, bring the focus back to clients
Microfinance was intended to be about clients, and designing products that would meet their financial needs. But in her research on MFIs, Laura Dick found that all too many seemed more interested in their repayment numbers or other institutional goals. The Month of Microfinance was launched, she says, to refocus the sector on the needs of the poor and radically transform it from the inside out.
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- Impact Assessment
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Behind the Scenes at Financial Inclusion 2020: Elisabeth Rhyne outlines the next steps in the movement to achieve global financial access
The Financial Inclusion 2020 Global Forum brought together hundreds of leaders to dedicate themselves to quality financial access for all by 2020. Since October, the Center for Financial Inclusion has been following up on the insights generated at the summit, and laying the groundwork for the next big push. Elisabeth Rhyne discusses the movement’s progress and next steps.
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