ImpactAlpha, August 21 – Credit systems in mature markets are imperfect. In many developing economies they don’t exist at all, keeping billions of people from participating in the formal financial system. Much like with off-grid energy and mobile phones, low-income countries have the opportunity to leapfrog decades-old credit systems originally built for brick and mortar banks.
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Greetings, Agents of Impact! Featured: ImpactAlpha Original Female fund managers make the case for ‘gender alpha’ in emerging markets. One way to seize the global growth opportunity in women’s equality: Back female fund managers with financial chops and deep understanding of underestimated entrepreneurs and underserved consumers. Female founders receive only 7% of emerging market private
Greetings, Agents of Impact! Featured: ImpactAlpha Original Ejido Verde is financing indigenous Mexicans to plant trees – and to plant a stake in the middle class. Decade-old Ejido Verde is one part pine-resin supplier, one part mass-reforestation project and one part community lender (ejidos are Mexico’s century-old form of communal land ownership). The company is
ImpactAlpha, March 27 – Bangalore-based New Street Technologies partners with banks to facilitate loans to small businesses through a blockchain-based lending platform. It has raised $2 million, led by impact investor Unitus Ventures. One of the most commonly cited reasons that banks don’t lend to small businesses is the cost of due diligence and servicing
Greetings, Agents of Impact! Featured: ImpactAlpha Original Bamboo Finance, Moeda and the government of Togo launch tech-driven impact fund for tech-driven companies. A Brazilian fintech startup popular with Chinese millennial investors has joined with the African nation of Togo to backstop a planned €100 million ($113 million) impact fund being raised by a Switzerland-based private-equity
Greetings, Agents of Impact! Featured: Returns on Investment podcast Risky Business: Corporations need market signals to reduce climate risks (podcast). Will it be risk – rather than returns – that drives impact investment? Bank of America worries about mortgage defaults from storm-flooded homeowners. Disney frets its theme parks may become too hot for vacationers. AT&T
ImpactAlpha, January 30 – Say what you will about blockchain hype (see “Deals lag the hype in ‘blockchain for good’ investments”). But keep paying attention. “The Blueprint for Blockchain and Social Innovation,” from New America’s Blockchain Trust Accelerator, takes stock of blockchain pilots and programs attempting to boost social impact and governance in business, global development,