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Airtel plans Africa stakes sales in bid to reduce debt, stay afloat
The Indian parent company of struggling mobile operator Airtel Kenya is set to sell stakes or merge some of its African units in a bid to stay afloat and reduce its debt burden.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- fintech
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A New Breed of Startups is Offering Microloans in India
When Deepthi K, a software engineer, came to know of a wedding in her in-law's family 15 days ahead of her salary day, she was in a fix. Neither did she have the money needed for the wedding nor the time to apply for a bank loanand go through a long paperwork process. Pressed for time, she approached a city-based start-up instead and got the entire amount of Rs 3 lakh within two days.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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- microfinance
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India’s Government Thinks a Universal Basic Income Could Eradicate Poverty
India is considering a radical idea for tackling poverty: rolling out a Universal Basic Income (UBI), according to a report by the country's Ministry of Finance.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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The unbanked: stop catering for the middle classes and open up to the world
Bladimir didn’t want a bank account. The 22-year-old son of corn and bean farmers in rural El Salvador had moved to the capital in search of greater economic opportunity, but a bank account was not part of that plan. He had grown up with stories of scams and disappointments, and had a deep distrust of bank accounts as a safe way to store his money.
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- Uncategorized
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Financial Inclusion for Rural Youth Starts with Adults
The three-year Rural Youth Economic Empowerment Project in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen tested five different approaches to achieving financial inclusion among rural youth. It found that the most sustainable and scalable approaches leveraged infrastructure that had been used to serve adults, then adapted to serve both adults and youth at the same time.
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- Uncategorized
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- financial inclusion, youth
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FINCA Kosovo Achieves Smart Certification for Client Protection
Today, FINCA Kosovo, the country's largest microfinance organization, announced it received the Client Protection Certification by Smart Campaign. This official recognition required an in-depth, external review of all of FINCA Kosovo's processes and policies. The positive results of this review reflect FINCA's deep commitment to high ethical standards in the treatment of its clients. FINCA Kosovo joins a group of over 60 certified financial institutions, including FINCA Kyrgyzstan, FINCA Azerbaijan and FINCA Bank Georgia.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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- microfinance
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Will demonetization reach C.K. Prahalad’s bottom of the pyramid?
What after demonetization? Can the Modi Government use it to empower the poor and turn the economic initiative into a definitive political initiative? The economists are divided on the issue. The Late Professor C.K. Prahalad the author of the much acclaimed book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid suggested some pathbreaking methods over a decade back that the economists backing demonetization could take heed off.
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- Uncategorized
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Helping Microfinance Clients to Save: Are Incentives a Solution?
La Ceiba is a microfinance institution that serves low-income clients in rural Honduras, where the combination of distance, cost and knowledge gaps discourages clients from opening and maintaining a savings account. The MFI decided to leverage small incentives and special training to address those challenges; here's how they did it and what they learned along the way.
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- Uncategorized
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