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Wrap-Around Services Are Changing the Face of Microfinance – For the Better: New Research Shows the Impact of Going Beyond Credit
While loans have always been at the heart of microfinance, credit alone is often not enough to create meaningful impact. To address this, many providers offer additional wrap-around services — from training and health support to savings, insurance and payment solutions — aimed at increasing the impact of their loans. Devin Olmack at 60 Decibels shares findings from 60 Decibels' 2023 Microfinance Index, based on conversations with over 32,000 borrowers across 32 countries, that show the increasing need for a spectrum of services that go beyond microcredit.
- Categories
- Finance
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Brazilian Startup Nagro Raises $49 Million
In total, Nagro has granted over $60M in credit to more than 5,000 rural producers and farmers.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Analysis: Nigeria’s Microfinance Banking Dream on Brink of Failure
The most widely-accepted recent labour force data gives a rough idea of how a vibrant micro business environment could help to deal with the country’s unemployment.
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- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Yunus Was Right — Credit is Indeed a Human Right, and Savings is Important Too: Why the Microfinance Sector Must Avoid the ‘Circular Firing Squad’ and Promote Multiple Approaches to Financial Inclusion
Alex Counts, financial inclusion pioneer and founder of Grameen Foundation, took issue with Jeffrey Ashe’s recent NextBillion article, “Yunus Was Wrong—Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right.” He argues that, instead of seeing the world through an “either/or” lens, the financial inclusion sector should embrace multiple tools, including credit, savings, insurance and more — and he urges today's changemakers to avoid promoting one social innovation at the expense of others.
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- Finance, Social Enterprise
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The Coca-Cola Foundation to Support Under-Represented Entrepreneurs
Kiva assists people who do not have access to commercial bank services to lenders through crowdfunding microfinance.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, WASH
- Region
- Global
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Light Microfinance, IppoPay to Offer Digital Loans to MSMEs in India
The lending potential of Indian MSMEs can reach $3 trillion by FY23.
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- Finance
- Tags
- fintech, microfinance, MSMEs
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Viewpoint: What Happened to the Microfinance Organization Kiva?
A group of strikers argue that the organization seems more focused on making money than creating change. Are they right?
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- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Yunus Was Wrong — Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right: Here’s How the Financial Inclusion Sector Can Shift its Focus
After playing a key role in the early development of the microfinance sector, Jeffrey Ashe went to Bosnia in the mid-1990s to consult on a new microfinance project. In those days, microcredit was widely viewed as a silver bullet that could end poverty, but while working in Bosnia, he learned that informal savings groups were already providing an effective alternative to formal loans in the local community. Ashe has spent the subsequent decades studying and supporting savings groups in countries around the world. He shares research that illuminates these groups' vast global impact, and argues that they could achieve far more if the financial inclusion sector supported them.
- Categories
- Finance