This company profile was graciously submitted by Nita Nehru from Avana Microinsurance. Avana Microinsurance is a social enterprise dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of microinsurance for sustainable poverty reduction and expanding access to insurance for low-income individuals, families and community organizations worldwide. Low-income households are more vulnerable than the rest of the population [...]
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“Innovations in Payments” is a LinkedIn Group that actively discusses recent developments in the financial payments industry, as well as through experiments of where the industry is headed. Here are some interesting on-going discussions: What does the payments industry bring to the elder? Are there any providers have found solutions to facilitate life of the [...]
Many credit programs for the poor attempt to help clients on the economic front, where some microfinance institutions may go the extra mile and offer business counseling to clients as well. Even fewer MFIs (Esperanza International, Trickle Up and Farz Foundation) enter the social realm and assist clients in the areas of health and education. [...]
Eko is a mobile banking service in India that offers community banking for the under privileged, unbanked and under-banked population. Over 70,000 customers enjoy a greater degree of financial independence thanks Eko’s simplified and intuitive business model that uses a wide network of banking agents to take the service to the customer’s doorstep. The greatest [...]
Here’s a captivating presentation about poverty and the wide disconnect (wealth gap) between the developing world and the developed world. Some interesting facts that caught my attention: North America and Europe combined spend eight times as much on alcoholic drinks than the global spending on basic healthcare and nutrition - every year. North America and Europe combined spend twice as [...]
You have probably heard of micro-grants and you have probably heard of micro-savings, but you may have yet to come across a microfinance model that combines them both. Financial Access @ Birth (financial access at birth) is a far-reaching idea by Bhagwan Chowdhry, who envisages a world in which each registered newborn gets a savings [...]
Trickle Up recently released a short documentary covering their noble efforts in rural India, which prove charity (micro-grants) is perhaps as good a tool as microfinance when it comes to helping the poor take their ‘first steps out of poverty’. The short film, The Test of Poverty, quickly conveys the unforgiving realities of extreme poverty [...]
Microfinance in China seems as unlikely an opportunity as it was considered before introduction in America; the obvious question is: why does the second most powerful economy in the world need microfinance? Here’s the answer: despite China’s monstrous growth and economic wealth, around 200 million people still live in extreme poverty. That’s five times the [...]
Everyone knows the biggest criticism faced by microfinance is the charging of high interest rates, even though plenty of justifications have been offered. Fortunately, not all microfinance programs fall in the same crater – Seeds for Development, a charity based in UK, offers zero-rate loans and so far, they’ve had a perfect repayment rate (a [...]
The basic idea is to provide the poor with the specific technologies they need, considering their unique circumstances. It’s not exactly like microfinance, but it definitely follows the same spirit as Kopernik relies on your donations to spread the much needed resources to the poor. See the video to get a better idea: Be sure [...]
