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Vodafone India’s M-Pesa Rolls Out Pension Payment Scheme
Vodafone India is pioneering a mobile money scheme allowing the state to pay social security pensions directly to an M-Pesa account across remote villages in the north of the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Virtual Network Operators in India Band Together in Attempt to Develop $4 Billion Industry
Virtual Network Operators Association of India (VNOAI) has been incorporated with the objective of promoting activities geared towards the development of Virtual Network Operators industry, US$ 4 billion business opportunity in India.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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India: IFC to Extend Up to $40m to Microfinance Firm Ujjivan Through Debt Investment
International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of World Bank plans to invest up to $40 million in Indian micro finance institution Ujjivan Financial Services in form of a senior debt investment.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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White House: U.S. to Support $10 Million in Loans to Myanmar Small Businesses
At the invitation of President Barack Obama, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is on an official visit to Washington, D.C. in September 2016. During the visit, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Obama held a meeting on September 14 in the White House and adopted this joint statement.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- lending
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One Solution to Keeping India’s Girls in School: Cheap Maxi Pads
In many stores across India, shopkeepers wrap maxi pads in black polythene. If they don’t have that, the products go in a small carton or brown paper bag. Absent those, “we try hiding it while walking down the road because of how people would react," says Khushboo Navani, a 23-year-old woman who lives in Bikaner. "People give you weird looks," she adds.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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The One-Rupee Trick: How Banks Cut Their Zero-Balance Jan Dhan Accounts
In August 2014, a few weeks after the launch of Jan Dhan, the government’s flagship scheme under which the unbanked get bank accounts, Kamlesh, a housewife at Purnapur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, opened an account at the Punjab and Sind Bank’s local branch. Wife of a farmer, the opening balance in her account was zero. This wasn’t unusual — in fact, accounts like Kamlesh’s, called zero-balance accounts, made up almost half of all the 17.90 crore Jan Dhan accounts a year later given that most of the holders were poor and had little by way of savings.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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India’s Microfinance Industry Clocked 60% Growth in Fiscal 2016
After years of subdued growth, the Indian microfinance (MFI) industry expanded more than 60% to Rs54,329 crore in 2015-16 compared to the previous year, according to a report prepared by Sa-Dhan, the self regulatory organisation of MFIs.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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WHO Asks India to Engage Private Healthcare Sector to Tackle Dengue and Chikungunya
The WHO called for strengthening India's disease surveillance network by engaging private healthcare sector more for reliable counts of cases of dengue and chikungunya, which have claimed over 80 lives and affected more than 50,000 people across the country. Terming engagement with private healthcare sector as "critical", WHO said that even probable dengue cases during outbreaks need to be reported to get more effective estimates while noting that strong surveillance, vector control, early diagnosis and case management and public awareness are key to control these vector-borne diseases.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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