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Twitter Top 10: 4-12-15
New resources. New partnerships. Even a cool new toilet. This week’s Twitter Top 10 is full of fascinating ideas and useful info, and you can help us get a head start on next week’s list. If you see anything interesting in the Twitterverse, you’re welcome to tweet it to our editors.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health Care
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Eight Months on, Two Charts Raise Questions About India’s Financial Inclusion Scheme
Two of every three bank accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojana have zero balance. Not a single insurance claim was settled during the last year.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Study: Only 2.8 Percent of Nigerian Adults Have Microfinance Accounts
Despite the huge numbers of Microfinance Banks, MFBs, operating in the country and regulatory authorities’ efforts to use them as channels for financial inclusion, investigations have confirmed that only 2.6 million of the adult population had MFB accounts.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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India’s Push for Banks for All Leaves Some Still Outside
Firozaben, a nurse at an upscale clinic here, opened an account at the state-owned Bank of Baroda Ltd. in December, attracted by the promise of an overdraft provision and accident- and life-insurance policies—all for no fee, courtesy of a government program to bring India’s masses into the banking system.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Making it Easier to Go Digital: Lowering barriers to entry for pro-poor financial institutions in Uganda
In December 2014 Airtel Uganda launched a mobile banking service to allow bank customers to access their accounts through mobile money agents. These services allow pro-poor financial institutions to reach rural Ugandans, but forging these digital connections is complex. In the third post in their series on what it takes for microfinance institutions to go digital, Grameen Foundation explores ways to overcome this complexity.
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- Uncategorized
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Financial Planning Lessons From Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
That Narendra Modi is a skilful orator is not news, but to hear him in person and to see him use ground-level common sense to drive home financial lessons to an auditorium full of bankers is quite an experience. The venue was the 80th birthday party of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai. And in case you were wondering, as I did, as to why celebrate 80 years rather than the global norm of 75 or 100, Modi said that 80 years is special to Indians because it marks the sahastra darshan or the 1,000 viewings of the full moon by a person who turns 80.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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No Distance Left to Run: India Post Shutters the Traditional Money Order Service
As Bob Dylan would croak, “oh the times they are-a changing”. India Post is quietly retiring its traditional money order service which facilitated pan-India door-delivery of funds to a payee from over 155,000 post offices, reports IANS. Shikha Mathur Kumar, the deputy director general for finance confirmed to the publication and added that India Post will be pushing the electronic money orders (eMO) and instant money orders (iMO).
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Driving Financial Inclusion at 4G Speed
Base-of-the-pyramid financial services providers in emerging markets are increasingly using data analytics to pioneer new products for reaching the unbanked. Alifinance in China is using the underlying transaction data of vendors on the giant online platform Alibaba to underwrite small business loans. M-Shwari in Kenya leverages M-Pesa's mobile money data for short-term, unsecured credit. Cignifi analyzes cell phone usage to provide credit as well as savings propensity scores. Lenddo uses online social network data for credit risk assessment. Similarly, a number of companies including Tiaxa and MODE use cell phone data to extend immediate nano-credits to prepaid customers who run out of airtime balances.
- Categories
- Technology
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