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China cashing out as mobile payment soars (The Business Times)

China cashing out as mobile payment soars (AFP)

Accelerating Financial Inclusion in South-East Asia with Digital Finance

Focussing on women, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the paper highlights that digital financial solutions could play a significant part in closing gaps in financial inclusion and povides insights from Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Alipay, WeChat Near $3 Trillion

UN Report: Social Network Payments Now Reach Nearly US$3 Trillion in China

Social Networks, e-Commerce Platforms, and the Growth of Digital Payment Ecosystems in China: What it Means for Other Countries

This report examines two of China’s most far-reaching applications – WeChat and Alipay – and explores their role in the development of one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated digital payments ecosystems.

UN report: Social network payments now reach nearly US $3 trillion in China

Payments on messaging and e-commerce platforms set to increase China’s GDP by $236 billion by 2025, unlocking new economic opportunities for people and small businesses…

Digitizing Wage Payments in Bangladesh’s Garment Production Sector

This report is the first of its kind to document key data points on the costs and benefits of wage digitization from a factory perspective.

Why Women Workers and Managers Prefer Electronic Wage Payments in Bangladesh

Payday can be an ordeal for women garment workers in Bangladesh. Often, they must wait in long lines, carry wads of cash through crowded streets, or encounter a mother-in-law demanding money…

As Development Aid Evolves, Digitizing Tax Payments Can Have Dramatic Benefits for Emerging Economies

This blog post was originally published in the Huffington Post…

Guide to the Use of Digital Financial Services in Agriculture

This Guidebook provides an easy-to-use tool to understand how digital finance is helping addressing some of the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and includes some interesting use cases from Bangladesh, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

Inter-American Development Bank becomes first regional development bank to join partnership to advance digital payments

The organization joins a UN-hosted alliance of governments, companies and international organizations to accelerate the move towards digitization of payments…

Mobile Financial Services In Bangladesh

The report provides an overview of the MFS progress in Bangladesh and discusses how selection of staff and beneficiaries from USAID agriculture and health projects are using both traditional and mobile financial services.

Inclusive Growth Through Branchless Banking: A Review of Agent Banking and Its Impact

The paper explores the opportunities to overcome barriers to financial access in Bangladesh through branchless banking and emphasis that financial inclusion and inclusive growth could be advanced through existing work by Bangladesh bank on favorable agent banking policies

Country Diagnostic: The Philippines

This Better Than Cash Alliance diagnostic estimates that Filipinos make about 2.5 billion payments per month, or roughly 64 monthly payments per adult, corresponding to a monthly value of over US$74 billion.

The Better Than Cash Journey: Colombia & Malawi

This is the second in a series of articles written by Maura Hart on the achievements of several Better Than Cash Alliance members. These highlights capture the innovative work by governments, businesses and development organizations to fulfill their commitment to transition from cash to digital payments.

Grupo Bimbo, world’s largest baking company, joins the Better Than Cash Alliance

In becoming a Better than Cash Alliance member, Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest baking company, announced that it will strengthen its commitment to digitize traditional small shops in Mexico.

Electronic transfers in humanitarian response: Good news, bad news and how-to

Digitizing the delivery of humanitarian aid has so much appeal. By taking cash out of the equation, electronic transfers (often called e-transfers or e-payments) promise a faster, more secur…

Build on progress made in Colombia’s shift to electronic payments, says Better Than Cash study

Building an inclusive financial ecosystem is critical to accelerating the shift away from cash in Colombia and Latin America…