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Weekly Roundup: A New Africa Accelerator – What Moms, Kids and GE Get Out of It
This week, GE and Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship announced the healthymagination Mother & Child Initiative, which intends to help social enterprises refine their business plans, manage their human capital and prepare for growth. We discuss this program, the value of old-school development solutions, and (potentially) big news from Facebook in this roundup.
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- Investing, Technology
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Kiva Cofounder Raises $9.2 Million For A ‘Branchless Bank’ For The Developing World
For his new concept of a “branchless bank,” Flannery’s going the startup route with some of Silicon Valley’s best known investors.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- mobile finance
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India’s banks take the battle to mobile wallet players
Banks are taking the battle to mobile wallet companies, armed with their readymade payment systems, wide merchant network and an on tap customer base, attempting to reclaim a turf which just a couple of years ago was their fiefdom.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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NexThought Monday: Sprinters vs. Limpers – Three Critical Success Factors for Digital Finance Deployments
According to the GSMA, there are 271 mobile money services in operation across 93 countries, and digital financial services are now available in over 60 percent of developing markets. An increasing number of services are reaching scale, as 30 services now have more than one million active accounts. But 241 have failed to do so. So what separates these 30 “sprinters” from those deployments that are merely limping along?
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- Uncategorized
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The Digital Cloud that Hangs Over Every African Farm
The African continent is at the forefront of the mobile revolution, with nearly 700 million mobile phone accounts — more than in the U.S. and Europe combined. Africa has also become the world leader in mobile banking. But mobile phones and even mobile money accounts do not amount to digital financial inclusion.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Tigo Tanzania Launches Innovative Nano Lending Scheme to Its Mobile Money Customers
Tigo Tanzania has today announced that it will launch an easy to access nano lending product to its stable of mobile financial services. This new product will not require collateral and offers immediate access to small loans to Tigo Pesa users.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Weekly Roundup: Nano Lending Under the Microsope and A Bond to Fight Diabetes
This week Tigo announced it will launch collateral-free nano loans to customers through its Tigo Pesa mobile financial platform in Tanzania. The unsecured loans will average $10,000 Tanzanian shillings (US $5). Is this the lift "nano lending" needs? Plus, Israel begins a new social impact bond to fight diabetes, what it could mean for financing global health.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- mobile finance
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Big Data isn’t Enough: We Need an ‘All of the Above’ Strategy to Drive Innovation in Financial Inclusion
Researchers love talking about their data and methods as a “toolbox,” and with the rise of big data, they’ve got a fancy new tool. However, the reason for carrying a toolbox is that there are very few projects where just one tool, no matter how powerful, is sufficient to get the job done. It’s necessary to recognize the weaknesses of big data as well as its strengths, and to think about what other types of data are needed to complement it.
- Categories
- Technology
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