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						Gap Inc. Sets New Goal For Apparel Suppliers To Pay Garment Workers Digitally By 2020More than 60 percent of Gap Inc.’s supplier factories already provide digital payments methods, such as online transfers to bank accounts or mobile wallets. The new goal will help scale this progress across the company’s global supply chain and positively impact the lives of more than one million garment workers. - Categories
- Finance
 
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						The Tortoise and the Hare: India and China Put Different Paths to Digital Finance to the TestIn 2016, some US$18 trillion changed hands via non-bank digital payment transactions in China – a value larger than its GDP. Meanwhile, though its population is roughly the same, India's digital finance industry has lagged far behind. But thanks to new digital infrastructure and evolving regulations, this situation is changing fast. Like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable, will India catch up with China, which has bounded ahead at hare-like speed? David Porteous at the Digital Frontiers Institute explores the two countries' approaches and their implications for other emerging markets. 
 
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- Finance, Technology
 
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						To sell payment services in rural India, MoneyOnMobile borrows a U.S. modelIn India, tens of millions of merchants still operate largely in cash with a mostly unbanked rural population. Technology could solve their problems, but the bigger differentiator may be in how payment services are sold. - Categories
- Finance
 - Region
- South Asia
 
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						Indonesia eyes fintech regulation to avoid ‘loan shark-like’ practicesThe emergence of these peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, offering loans ranging from as little as a few hundred dollars to several thousands, has so far been welcomed by Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy where tens of millions of people have little or no access to bank credit. - Categories
- Finance
 - Region
- Asia Pacific
 
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						Amazon considers launching branded checking accounts for unbankedAmazon is reportedly in talks with JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Capital One Financial Corp., to offer checking account services to younger customers and the unbanked. - Categories
- Finance
 
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						Equitel launches mobile-based insurance in KenyaEquitel subscribers will now have access to a mobile-based insurance product, called Riziki Cover. According to the company, the solution aims to ease the financial burden associated with lost daily income from one’s employment or personal business in case they are admitted to hospital. - Categories
- Finance
 - Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
 - Tags
- insurance, mobile finance
 
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						India’s Little Shops Are a Massive Banking Network in the MakingIndians who still rely on cash are a ready-made financial-services market and a lucrative sideline for the corner store. - Region
- South Asia
 
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						International remittances to exceed $600bn in 2018The World Bank estimates that global remittances will grow by 3.4% to $616 billion in 2018. Sub-Saharan Africa, with an average cost of 9.1%, remains the highest-cost region, it says. 
