Originally reported in PCWorld by Ken Banks.

MicroCred, an investment company that creates companies and banks specialized in microfinance, approved a capital increase which includes investments from a new shareholder, Developing World Markets (DWM) and a founding shareholder, AXA Belgium. DWM will take a 22% stake in the company, while AXA Belgium will increase its shareholding to 25%. MicroCred’s total equity capital stood at USD 23.2 million at the end of November 2008. Continue Reading »

Acumen Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in sustainable development operations, announced four new investments in Pakistan. The investments amount to over USD 2.8 million. Acumen Fund began investing in Pakistan in 2002 with a focus on the housing sector, providing slum-dwellers with affordable legal housing and infrastructure alternatives, as well as financial services that allowed low-income clients to improve their homes and supplement their incomes. Acumen Fund has since expanded its focus to address the broader set of critical issues keeping the majority of the population of 160 million people in poverty. Continue Reading »

Globe Telecom, the second largest telecommunications company in the Philippines, has announced a partnership with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) to utilize mobile banking technology in rural poverty stricken provinces. Specifically, Globe Telecom’s wholly owned mobile commerce business, G-XChange Inc. (GXI), intends to use its GCASH service to make it possible for poor people in the low-income rural provinces of Bohol, Surigao and Palawan to access basic financial services. Continue Reading »

Opportunity International, one of the world’s largest microfinance organizations, received a $1.2 million grant from the John Deere Foundation to provide increased access to financing for the hunger-afflicted in Africa. OI forecasts that the grant will have a $10.6 million economic impact over the next three years. The grant will be used to benefit farmers, food processors and retailers and their ability to provide affordable food to the rural poor in Malawi and Mozambique. Continue Reading »

The Partnership for Lebanon (PFL), an organization focused on creating sustainable social and economic growth in the region, recently hosted an event highlighting the creation of several new initiatives by some partner organizations. The event brought together Lebanese business sector leaders, economic organizations, various governmental entities, press and partners. Cisco Systems and Intel Corporation were a few of the organizations on hand to present the new programs. Continue Reading »

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently published a note about efforts in India to provide an integrated approach in addressing poverty alleviation, global health and energy. Shortage of cooking fuel is a key problem in India where approximately 260 million of the country’s total 1.2 billion population live below the poverty line. Some households burn cow dung cakes as an alternative fuel source, creating environmental hazards and causing harmful health consequences, including acute respiratory infections in children. According to a 2006 Shell Foundation Report, deaths linked to biomass smoke exposure compete with malaria as the leading cause of death in adults in developing nations every year. Continue Reading »

ClassifEye, a developer of secure fingerprint authentication technology, announced that Cashpor India, an Indian microfinance institution (MFI), has adopted ClassifEye’s camera-phone-based transactions and authentication solution. Casphor hopes to broaden its customer base and allow their agent-serviced customers to improve their financial reach. Cashpor India is piloting the service in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Continue Reading »

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) issued a press release that they would be extending a total of $100 million in loans for a project intended to assist some of the estimated 150,000 poor farmers in southern Philippines – which includes six provinces in the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao that have high levels of poverty. The funding consists of a loan of $70 million from ADB’s ordinary capital resources (OCR), and an additional $30 million from the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), which is administered by ADB. In addition to what ADB is funding, the Philippine government is contributing $52.4 million and local government units are contributing $56 million. All of the funding will go to the The Agrarian Reform Communities Project II (ACRP) which will allocate $135.2 million for rural infrastructure projects and $25.2 million for agriculture and enterprise development. The remaining funds will be used for capacity building, project implementation management, and contingencies. Continue Reading »

Financial Information Network and Operations Ltd. (FINO), a technology organization that produces biometric smartcards and micro-loan management software, has completed 2 million enrollments of customers in India. The number of enrollments increased from 1 million to 2 million in less than 4 months with an average of 20,000 customers being enrolled per day. FINO’s rapid growth is in part due to the extensive network of banks and other financial and government institutions utilizing their technology. That network includes Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Corporation Bank, DGB, ICICI Bank, ING Vysya, OBC, PNB, and UBI. Continue Reading »

MOBILE BANKING FOR THE POOR: PIONEER PERSPECTIVES

DECEMBER 11, 2008, 2:00PM – 5:00PM, WORLD BANK HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) will be hosting a discussion on the CGAP Technology Blog on how mobile phone banking can deliver a range of financial services to poor people and change lives for the better. Continue Reading »

ACCION International, a microfinance organization founded in 1961, launched a new hub office and training center in Accra, Ghana, with the aim to expand financial services for Africa’s poorest populations. The new center will offer support to East and West African microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the form of education and training to increase capacity. According to the press release, ACCION’s goals are to train 3,000 microfinance practitioners in such disciplines as business planning, risk management, lending and governance; all through its training center network. Continue Reading »

Elayne Clift, an independent journalist, recently wrote a piece in the The New Nation entitled “The Woman Behind Obama,” in which she describes the life of Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro. In the article she highlights some of the work that Mrs. Soetoro did in Indonesia for the Ford Foundation while she was working on her PhD in anthropology. Mrs. Soetoro had a long career of being a researcher and practitioner of microfinance. She was a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on a village credit program, a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work, a consultant in Pakistan for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and joined Indonesia’s oldest bank (Bank Rakyat) to work on one of the world’s largest sustainable microfinance programs, creating services like credit and savings for the poor. Continue Reading »

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has granted US$1.7 million to PlaNet Finance to fund a mobile banking project aimed at providing microfinance clients with enhanced access to banking services. The project was co-developed with mobile operator Orange and is attempting to facilitate cost-effective access to microfinance services and products for microentrepreneurs living in remote areas who cannot afford the time or the money to travel to the nearest bank or microfinance institution. Continue Reading »

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) began offering a new design course this year called the NextLab Initiative which focuses on catering mobile technologies to the needs of users in developing countries. The projects in the class are comprised of three to five students with multi-disciplinary backgrounds and involve partnerships with localized field practitioners and non governmental organizations (NGOs). Students with technically and socially viable prototypes may obtain funding to prepare their technologies for full fledged deployment into the real world. The primary goals of the course projects are: Continue Reading »

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Original news wire here

Global microfinance leaders met Wednesday in San Francisco to discuss a cutting-edge strategy to get the world’s poorest borrowers to repay their loans: Keep them healthy. Continue Reading »

The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the leading microfinance think tank housed at the World Bank, recently posted an interview with with Naushad Contractor about India’s mobile banking trends in their technology blog. Naushad heads marketing for mobile commerce at Vodafone Essar ltd., India. He is also on the regulatory committee of the Mobile Payments Forum of India. He was a member of the core team that launched and made Remit2India.com the World’s No.1 Independent Money Transfer Portal for Non Resident Indians. Continue Reading »

Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Laboratory (EFL) received a grant from the philanthropic arm of Google last week. The grant totals $710,000 and will be used by EFL to develop ways to screen loan applicants in developing nations. Professor Asim ljaz Khwaja of the Kennedy School of Government, and Bailey Klinger, a fellow at the School’s Center for International Development, were the recipients of the grant. The two created the EFL in 2007 and have since directed its research. Continue Reading »