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Mobile Lender InVenture Raises $10 Million
InVenture Capital Corp., a provider of small loans by cellphones, has raised $10 million in Series A funding, Yuliya Chernova reports for Dow Jones VentureWire. The company has a mobile app that can be downloaded by users, who then can request a loan. Once the user has granted the app access to their device, the company’s algorithm evaluates the activity on their mobile money accounts, such as how much they deposit and withdraw, the timeliness of their utility bill payments, and thousands of other nuggets of information such as social media, demographic, and communications patterns, to make a loan decision in minutes. The company currently operates in Kenya and Tanzania. Data Collective led the Series A round, which includedLowercase Capital, Collaborative Fund, Female Founders Fund and individual investors.
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OPINION: Microfinance has a part to play in fighting terrorism
"I absolutely believe that business, done in a responsible way, is a credible alternative to delivering up your kids to being radicalized," says FINCA president Rupert Scofield.
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India’s microfinance institutions see gross loan growth of 69% in the previous quarter
Microfinance institutions saw a healthy 69% growth in their gross loan portfolio in the April June quarter compared to that in the same period of last year.
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- South Asia
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Weekly Roundup – 8/28/15: Will microfinance take on the ‘randomistas’?
Our finance editor discusses an online dispute between two global development heavyweights, which highlighted the growing tension between the microfinance sector and the poverty researchers who have increasingly called its impact into question. And our health care editor weighed in on another bout: The e-cigarette vs. traditional tobacco cancer stick industry in the developing world.
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- Health Care
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Tough Challenges Await India’s Chandrashekhar Ghosh’s Bandhan in Its Commercial Bank Avtaar
On Sunday, Kolkata-based microfinance institution (MFI), Bandhan Financial Services formally converted itself into a full service commercial bank, thus becoming the latest private sector bank in the country. Bandhan is one of the two entities, which were given full-service banking licences by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April, 2014, from a list of 25 aspirants that included big business houses. The other is IDFC.
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50th Microfinance Institution Launched in Cambodia
The Royal Microfinance institution launched its operations in Cambodia on Thursday, bringing the total number of micro-lenders in the kingdom to 50.
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- lending, microfinance
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Viewpoint: How We Talk About Microfinance: Alex Counts Replies to Dean Karlan
On Sunday, August 23, as I was enjoying some of the final days of summer visiting friends in New Hampshire, I noticed that I had been tagged in a tweet by Dean Karlan, the founder and president of Innovations for Poverty Action. He provided a link to an article about FINCA that included extensive quotes from its CEO, Rupert Scofield. He asked Rupert if he really believed microfinance could reduce terrorism, and asked me what I thought (“whatcha think?” was the precise formulation of his question). Hetweeted again on Monday, asking whether I was “still going to stand by [my] claim that no microcredit leaders make grandiose and overselling impact claims?”
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- lending, microfinance
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What payments banks, Bandhan can do for financial inclusion in India
There have two big developments in financial inclusion in the country in the past few days, whose significance stands out despite the din arising from the recent global stock market crash.
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- Region
- South Asia
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