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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2022
NextBillion’s “Most Influential Article of the Year” contest has concluded, and after tallying the votes, we’re excited to announce the three winners, as selected by our readers. Congratulations to the winners and their organizations! And many thanks to the other contestants, to all our guest writers from the past year – and also to the unsung heroes: the comms teams that play a key role in facilitating many of our articles.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Finance, Technology
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African Telcos Target Minors With New Mobile Money Solutions
African telecom operators are re-imagining these accounts, lining up digital junior wallets to allow young individuals aged below 18 years old to make more transactions over mobile phones.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, savings
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Indian Savings Fintech Jar Lands $22.6 Million in Series B Funding
The start-up says the influx of cash will be used to fuel the development of its products and technology for hiring new talent.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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The Power of Results-Based Funding for Poverty Alleviation: What We Learned from Africa’s First-Ever Development Impact Bond – and What’s Next
Development impact bonds (DIBs) are an innovative, results-based funding model with the potential to reduce poverty and make aid more effective. To assess their impact, a randomized controlled trial was conducted on Africa's first-ever DIB for poverty alleviation, which supported a poverty graduation program implemented by Village Enterprise. Dianne Calvi at Village Enterprise and Brian Boland at the Delta Fund (one of the nine philanthropic investors in the DIB) discuss the results of this study, what they mean for the sector, and how results-based funding can evolve to maximize its impact.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Investing
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Analysis: Will Informal Savings Groups Survive Inflation?
With the current economic downturn, the disintegration of some of these savings groups is not out of question.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Press Release: Voyager Innovations Raises US $210 Million to Expand the Financial Services Ecosystem of PayMaya and Maya Bank
Voyager Innovations is the leading technology company in the Philippines behind the end-to-end money platform PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank.
- Region
- South Asia
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Savings-Led Digital Finance: The Dawn of a New Era?
The digital lending market surpassed $300 billion in 2020, with significant growth among emerging markets customers who access “instant loans” from their mobile phones. But according to Philip Acton and Finn Tiedemann at DreamStart Labs Inc., there are growing concerns about the risky practices used by some of these digital lenders. They argue that one solution may come from a new generation of “savings-led” digital finance apps that use clients' savings capacity as a proxy for their ability to repay loans – a development they describe as an important milestone in digital finance.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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The Ins and Outs of Launching a Digital Savings Product in Kenya: Regulatory Guidance for Fintech Startups
Kenya is among the most advanced markets in the world in terms of fintech innovation and digital financial services. But according to Abby Butkus at BFA Global's Catalyst Fund, this innovation has yet to extend to digital savings, where the uncertain regulatory environment requires startups to be creative in their approach. She discusses four ways startups are approaching the regulatory process for their digital savings products, and shares a set of guides Catalyst Fund has released to aid founders in navigating the regulatory environments in Kenya and other countries.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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