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Zimbabwe Launches Region’s First Women’s Bank
The bank is the first of its kind in the Sadc region and it will offer loans to women, youths and other small scale businesses.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Belgium’s Incofin plans $80-million India Progress Fund
“India Progress Fund will be our first country focused fund,” Incofin’s partner and co-head for Asia investments, Aditya Bhandari told ET.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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Vikram Akula’s inside story of SKS Microfinance will remain untold
‘Micro-Meltdown’, written by SKS Microfinance founder Vikram Akula, once the poster boy of Indian microfinance, is a gripping tale of what it takes to build a world-class financial institution and how to destroy it.
- Region
- South Asia
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Using Findex Wisely: Understanding the Strengths and Weaknesses of the World’s Biggest Financial Inclusion Dataset
The Global Findex report is an essential piece of data for the financial inclusion sector, but its insights should nevertheless be treated with caution, says Daniel Rozas. Exploring some inexplicable findings in the recent Findex 2017 release, he breaks down the limits of survey-based data, and explains how Findex can be used in combination with other forms of data to get a more accurate picture of financial inclusion progress.
- Categories
- Finance
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Is Financial Inclusion Stalling? The 2017 Findex Results Raise Several Red Flags
The Global Financial Inclusion Database (Findex) - one of the most authoritative yardsticks on the state of financial inclusion - finds that 69 percent of the world’s adults now have bank or mobile money accounts. But while that's an exciting headline, it's also misleading, as millions of those newly opened accounts are lying dormant. And that's just one reason why industry stakeholders have found the latest Findex data underwhelming. Elisabeth Rhyne and Sonja Kelly at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion unpack some of the troubling stats – and highlight a few bright spots.
- Categories
- Finance
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Viewpoint: Can Impact Investing Avoid the Failures of Microfinance?
The impact investment industry is growing rapidly, a fact that many of us in the field celebrate. But are we scaling the right model?
- Categories
- Investing
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OPIC Provides $5 Million in Financing to Grameen Impact Investments India
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) announced that $5 million in local currency financing has been mobilized to Grameen Impact under an OPIC loan guaranty agreement with India’s IndusInd Bank.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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IBM’s Microfinance Blockchain in Kenya Tests the Viability of Hyperledger
IBM is back supporting a microfinance project using a Hyperledger blockchain to help administer small loans at low interest to food sellers in Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- blockchain, microfinance
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