Financial Inclusion

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Financial Inclusion

Unleashing Ugandan farmers’ potential through mobile phones

A powerful new mobile platform combining agriculture information and financial services specifically designed for farmers in Uganda is going live, helping them plow even more value from each acre.

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Financial Inclusion

Fiji students are about to become the world's savviest savers

Fiji is leading the world in money management education, by exposing almost 200,000 students to savings and budgeting skills starting next month.

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Financial Inclusion

Quotable: Africa alone has more mobile money users than Facebook does worldwide

There are now more mobile money activity users in Africa than there are users of Facebook.

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Financial Inclusion

Mobile-powered and dirt cheap, Bima is revolutionizing microinsurance

Bima, a young Swedish microinsurance company, is using mobile phones to sell as many as three billion new insurance policies to the global poor.

New bank for the rural poor: The post office

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Financial Inclusion

Book Review: A firsthand look at Kiva entrepreneurs across the globe

In an ideal world, microfinance is the perfect mechanism for alleviating financial stress on new and small businesses. But how well does it work in real life?

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Financial Inclusion

The new bank for rural poor: The post office

Post offices in Nigeria are becoming surrogate bank branches for the unbanked rural poor, under a government project launched last month.

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Financial Inclusion

Two ways to get farm loans where they're needed most: the boonies

To get small staple-crop farmers the loans they need, lenders must use new approaches tailored to the 90 percent of smallholders not in farmer organizations.

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Financial Inclusion

A 'demographic window' of opportunity: Why youth need bank access now

The enormous economic potential of developing countries depends on their response to a global demographic shift--a response that'll fail without universal, affordable access to financial services.

Neal Keny-Guyer, Mercy Corps CEO, discusses ways technology can help the poor benefit from the formal financial sector. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/6777384419/">World Economic Forum (flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Three ways digital cash helps the poor

Traditional financial services aren't working for the poor. The problem? Paper.

MarkyBon via Compfight"/>

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Financial Inclusion

Can cash prizes get people to save money?

Here's an interesting way to get people to save money: instead of paying interest, enter everyone who deposited money in the bank last month in a drawing for a big cash prize.

By increasing the amount of food harvested per year, Bangladesh has been able to decrease the number of undernourished people<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/8054518284/sizes/z/in/set-72157603951157081/">World Bank (flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Fighting poverty without rapid growth: Bangladesh shows how it's done

Bangladesh is living proof that empowering and assisting the poor can sharply cut poverty even without rapid growth.

Micro-scale life insurance, with annual payments of $10 a year or less, has exploded in the Philippines thanks to close partnerships with microfinance institutions. Photo: <a href="http://flic.kr/p/5ZzWFe">Lemuel Cantos (Flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Philippine life insurers find runaway success in MFI partnerships

It's taken 40 years of experimentation, but in the Philippines, a unique business model has found a way to sell life insurance hand over fist to poor people.

Mobile phones are one of the ways ADB says will increase microfinance availability among the poor. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/8048414699/">CIMMYT (flickr)</a>.

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Financial Inclusion

MFIs should offer more than just microfinance, study finds

Despite the surging popularity of microfinance in the last several decades, access among the poor in Asia and the Pacific remains low. A new report says technology and livelihood programs will put it in the hands of more people.

Women with small businesses who lost inventories can make up the loss with the Kore W loan product offered by MiCRO and Fonkoze. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle for Mercy Corps.

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Financial Inclusion

Hurricane Sandy triggers largest Haiti microinsurance payout to date

The reinsurance company Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) will make a significant payout to the Haitian microfinance institution Fonkoze following Hurricane Sandy.