IMPACT

Access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and those setting up a business has long been a challenge in the UK. The country's big banks have been reluctant to lend to SMEs since the recession, despite government policies designed to change this. However, a new website is hoping to change this. Business Banking Insight (BBI) has gone live and will look at how well British SMEs are being served by banks. Chancellor George Osborne commissioned the site, with the aim of helping businesses make better informed banking decisions.

When Shivani Siroya started developing an idea for a new microfinance model, she found that while 4.5 billion people did not have any kind of formal credit score that could help them qualify for loans, 90% of the world's population did have access to mobile phones. Thus, Siroya came up with a way to use that mobile access to give the underserved and unbanked access to a financial identity that can help them understand what they can afford and qualify for the resources they need. Siroya has developed a mobile app--InSight--to put the unbanked on the map.

Are social networks relevant for financial inclusion? The link between social media and financial inclusion is dynamic in China, where 46% of the population, or 640 million people, are active social network users. The profiles of China’s social media users are highly diverse, with some sites successfully reaching lower income users in poorer cities, remote areas, rural entrepreneurs and students. Recently, financial services offered through social media have begun to take off, with interesting potential to expand financial inclusion.

Nigeria is poised to become sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy in 2014.  Driving its high and sustained economic growth is a mix of raw commodity exports and an expanding population that is rising in wealth and aspiration.
 
However, the historic structure of its economy and the configuration of its infrastructure mean that Nigeria's growth is not shared out evenly amongst its population. The country has a huge burden of poverty and unemployment and is heavily dependent on imports of manufactured goods.
 

Supply Chain Network in association with Absa Bank, provides a Procurement Portal with powerful technology to connect small business and big business with one another. The vision is to quickly and smartly facilitate business connections to stimulate economic and employment growth.

This article discusses the merits of bringing in new players to challenge old ways of thinking. According to the author, microcredit was a business model disruption in the banking sector. Today, to offer the full range of high-quality financial services required by the majority of the world's people, we need to find the next major business model to disrupt microcredit.

This paper uses long panel survey data spanning over 20 years to examine the dynamics of microcredit programs in Bangladesh. With the phenomenal growth of microfinance institutions representing 30 million members with over $2 billion of annual disbursement over the past two decades, it is important to understand the dynamics of microcredit expansion and its induced impact on household welfare.

Rwanda will host the 14th World Export Development Forum in September according to the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB). The forum, scheduled for September 16-17, will focus on the need to create trade and employment opportunities by increasing the competitiveness of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs). This will be the first time the International Trade Centre will bring its flagship event to Africa.