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In: Stories

Hong Kong Bank Foundation supports training and accommodation for people with disabilities

Run by the Hong Chi Association, a local NGO, the the Hongkong Bank Foundation Fung Tak Centre provides services to adults with mental disabilities.

In: Stories

ICICI provides weather insurance for Indian farmers

Insurance company ICICI has partnered with Indian based microfinance institution BASIX to pilot the sale of rainfall insurance to farmers in India.

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KPMG supports Fairtrade Africa

BRIGHT is KPMG Europe’s first skills-based pro-bono project that supports the Millennium Development Goals. The global financial services group aims to support capacity building in the core areas of finance, risk management, operational excellence, human resources, IT and marketing. During 2011,...

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation makes financial services accessible to the poor

The Financial Services for the Poor initiative created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides poor people with reliable access to a range of safe, affordable financial tools and services intended to help them build better, healthier lives.

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Santander Microcrédito (Banco Real ABN AMRO) works with Accion to support small businesses in Brazil

Santander Microcrédito, an initiative by Banco Real ABN AMRO, offers small loans to growing businesses that lack access to conventional forms of credit.

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Partnership between UNDP and World LP Gas Association provides clean energy to rural areas of Morocco

In many developing countries, including Morocco, there is still a high dependence on traditional biomass fuel in rural areas, which has many negative consequences, such as deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, health issues and gender inequality. Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) represents a safe and...

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Partnerships allow Rural Finance Corporation to promote rural development in Moldova

Rural Finance Corporation (RFC) is a non-bank for-profit financial institution that has been functioning on the financial market of the Republic of Moldova for 10 years. Its mission is to directly take action against poverty in Moldova and promote rural development, offering favorable financial...

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Venture capital for low-income markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

Investing in housing, healthcare, education, basic utilities and nutrition can not only fulfill a social mission, but can also be a profitable business venture.

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Chilean bank pursues business opportunities in the low-income microenterprise market

Where others see obstacles, Chile’s Banco de Crédito e Inversiones (BCI) sees opportunities.

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How financial illiteracy becomes both the cause and consequence of economic inequality

This is a blogpost on the CRS newswire that questions the usefulness of CSR programmes provided by banks and other financial institutions.

In: Stories

Vortex Engineering and Wizzit Bank announce new banking services for the rural poor

Two companies have announced that they will be providing banking services to more than 30 million low-income people in India and South Africa by 2015 through their commitments to the Business Call to Action (BCtA), a global initiative that encourages private sector efforts to fight poverty.

In: Resources

Opportunities for the Majority: Bank initiative that promotes and finances private sector business models

The Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) Initiative promotes and finances market-based, sustainable business models that engage private sector companies, local governments and communities in the development and delivery of quality products and services for the majority of the population of Latin...

In: Resources

A discussion paper on social intrapreneurship

This paper produced by the Doughty Centre at the Cranfield University examines the potential value of social intrapreneurship, and provisionally defines a social intrapreneur as "a person within a large corporation who takes direct initiative for innovation which addresses social or environmental...

In: Resources

Scaling Up Inclusive Business: Advancing the Knowledge and Action Agenda

This is a report produced for the International Finance Corporation. It is based on 14 IFC client case studies and draws on other research undertaken by IFC and the CSR Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School on inclusive business, including recent research supported by the Bill & Melinda...

In: Resources

Business Models that Make a Difference

This is a publication produced by IFC (the International Finance Corporation) arguing that inclusive business models are good for business.

Centre for Micro-Finance (CMF)

The objectives of the Centre for Micro-Finance (CMF) are to provide knowledge management services to the microfinance practitioners and institutions, undertake research and studies on microfinance and related development issues, raise public awareness on sustainable microfinance and to provide...

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) is a consortium of 29 bilateral and multilateral donor agencies who support microfinance. CGAP's mission is to improve the capacity of microfinance institutions to deliver flexible, high-quality financial services to the very poor on a sustainable basis....

PlaNet Finance

PlaNet Finance is an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to the development of microfinance worldwide. Over the past ten years and thanks to its dynamism and growing international network, PlaNet Finance has been working at providing people with the means to build their own...

MicroPlace

MicroPlace is a social business owned by eBay. It is currently the only website that enables everyday people to make investments in the microfinance industry. The microfinance institutions then microcredit small loans - available to the poor which allow them to start a business and work their ways...

United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

UNCDF works to help eradicate poverty through local development programmes (LCP) and microfinance operations. LCP is to test decentralized/ local planning systems and funding mechanisms. Microfinance operations is to develop financial systems, engage financial service providers, central banks and...