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Safaricom CEO Warns His “Clumsy” Product Needs to Diversify or Risk Dying
The future of M-Pesa, the world’s leading mobile money-transfer system, lies in transforming the service’s “clumsy” technology into something more efficient, innovative, and collaborative. At least that’s the vision spelled out by the company’s CEO.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Weekly Roundup: A 1,030-Enterprise Survey, a Cuba/U.S. Collaboration, and a ‘Big Bet’ Primer
An expansive survey of social enterprises, a new health care collaboration between some old Cold War rivals, and an ambitious exploration of the challenges of "big bets" in philanthropy highlight this week's roundup of social business and global development news.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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How Does India Fare in Access to Banking?
Financial inclusion may have become a buzzword among India’s econocrats and central bankers but India continues to lag behind most major economies when it comes to access to banking, the results of the Financial Access Survey for 2016 released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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India’s Big Banks Sets Their Sights on Small Towns, Villages
Billionaire Uday Kotak did something unusual last month. He signed off on his Kotak Mahindra Bank valued at Rs 1.4 lakh crore for buying BSS Micro Finance, a tiny lender which does not even have 1% of the assets the bank has.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Indian Microfinance Institution Ujjivan to Launch Biometric ATMs
Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd., (Ujjivan), a leading pan-India microfinance institution, which is in process of transforming into a small finance bank (SFB), today announced that it will provide the benefits of ATMs to its unbanked and under-served customers across the country by using biometric enabled machines.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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New GSMA Report Sees Rise in Mobile Broadband and Smartphone Adoption Across Middle East and North Africa
Mobile broadband networks will account for 61 per cent of mobile connections by 2020, up from 41 per cent today, across the diverse Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, according to a new GSMA report published today at the GSMA Mobile 360 Series – Middle East conference in Dubai. The new study, ‘The Mobile Economy – Middle East and North Africa 2016’, highlights that there are currently 339 million unique mobile subscribers (Q2 2016) across the region’s twenty five markets1, a figure expected to rise to 385 million by 20202. The number of smartphone connections3 has also more than doubled over the last three years to reach 263 million in Q2 2016, accounting for 42 per cent of total connections, and is forecast to reach 467 million by 2020. The availability of mobile broadband networks has increased smartphone adoption and is helping to bridge the digital divide and usher in innovative new mobile services.
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- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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USAID Launches Catalyst to Drive Cashless Payments in India
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Friday announced the launch of a new initiative “Catalyst: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership” (www.cashlesscatalyst.org).
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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What is Lost in a Digital Financial World — And How to Get it Back
As we work to extend financial services to the two billion financially excluded people around the world, we must rely on digital financial services. But vital as they are to financial inclusion, in the transformation to digital interfaces, valuable personal connections between financial service providers and customers are lost. Elisabeth Rhyne explores what exactly is lost, and how that loss can be mitigated or replaced.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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