Financial Inclusion
The World Bank - April 2017
Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.
How technology is transforming and saving microfinance
Vikas Lalwani - November 02, 2014
Microfinance, in simplest words, can be defined as providing small loans to people in need. It is already a $70 billion industry, serving more than 150 million people worldwide, by more than 10,000 micro-finance institutions. The numbers look fantastic, but ground realities do not look that bright under the lens.
7 keys that bring fintech and financial inclusion together
BBVA - August 31, 2016
More than 2 billion adults are excluded from the formal financial system, according to the Universal Financial Access 2020 report by the World Bank. The challenge is to ensure that by 2020 adults around the world will have access to a checking account or an electronic service to save their money and send and receive payments. This goal is behind the boom in financial inclusion strategies, which are increasingly making use of technology and the services provided by the so-called technological finance (fintech).
5 barriers holding back fintech entrepreneurs
Adva Saldinger - January 09, 2018
WASHINGTON — There are a growing number of financial technology companies starting up across the globe in an effort to find ways to harness technology to reach underserved or unserved customers. While financial inclusion presents both a development and a business opportunity, there are challenges that constrain the ability of this cadre of entrepreneurs.
DevExplains: Fintech versus financial inclusion: What’s the difference?
Jenny Lei Ravelo - December 04, 2017
Mobile phones have introduced a sea of opportunities in every sector imaginable, and that includes in finance. Today, anyone with a cellphone can engage in one form or another of cashless transaction, be it paying bills, sending phone credit, transferring cash, or buying goods and services — even in flea markets.
Q&A: What the Gates Foundation is looking for in the digital finance space
Jenny Lei Ravelo - December 01, 2017
Organizations working on financial inclusion often grapple with the question: how to get a large number of low-income individuals and families access to financial services? For the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the answer is digital.
UN Women on the hunt for a blockchain solution
Amy Lieberman - February 01, 2018
When Fredrik Mosis moved to Norway from Côte d’Ivoire as a teenager for football opportunities, he started to send money home to his family. He channeled the money through his uncle, but when Mosis returned back to Côte d’Ivoire he found it had never reached his other family members.
There is a solution for this common issue of remittance mismanagement, Mosis found, and the year-old, Norway-based blockchain initiative he co-founded, Vipicash, addresses it. The app designates how and where individual cash recipients can spend their money, tying the funds to participating local businesses or institutions.
The Future of Microfinance is Mobile: FinTech Resolves Three Key Obstacles of Lending to the Unbanked
Frederic Nze - August 15, 2017
The arrival of the credit score, or FICO, in the late 20th century initiated a cultural shift that democratized credit and made borrowing commonplace across middle-class households. Without it, would U.S. car sales have reached 17.5 million in 2016? Or would that country’s college enrollment have increased 240 percent from 1965 to 2014? Global retail e-commerce sales certainly would not be on track to reach $4.48 trillion in revenue by 2021 without the credit card.
How Microfinance Institutions Can Integrate Fintech
Michael Schlein - June 26, 2017
Latin America pioneered commercial microfinance, leads the world in inclusive financial regulation, and has fewer financially excluded people than anywhere else on earth. Despite that, half of Latin American adults still lack a bank account.