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WeChat, You Chat, We All Chat: the importance of social media and entertainment for digital finance

Jessica Osborn

This blog was co-authored by Jessica Osborn and Annabel Schiff, both Senior Manager, Partners for the FiDA Partnership

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Eight things we learned in China driving Fintech fortune

Jessica Osborn

In May, the FiDA Partnership took 26 leaders from Africa’s digital finance industry to China to learn about their unprecedented FinTech boom. The week was immersive and intense, designed to allow participants to escape the boardroom and experience Chinese digital life firsthand on the streets of Beijing, in the mom-and-pop stores of Hangzhou, and the on factory floors of Guangdong. In this blog, we reflect on the key lessons.

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Eye in the sky, maize on the ground

Maha Khan

Richard is a smallholder maize farmer in Western Kenya. He used to borrow money from his family or friends to buy essential inputs to grow maize—seed, fertilizer, and equipment—because he couldn’t access a formal loan from a bank. Most banks consider him a high risk client because of his low-income and lack of credit history. Recently though, Richard obtained a $50 loan for his farming business. By processing and analyzing satellite imagery on his farmland and cropping cycle, in combination with other alternative data, a lending organization was able to assess his creditworthiness.

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Launching into space: using satellite imagery in financial services

Maha Khan

Two agriculture FinTechs integrated satellite imagery into their business models and product offerings, illustrating the promise and limitations of big data in financial services.

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