Category: Finance

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has extended a landmark €12 million equivalent subordinated debt facility in Serbian dinars to ProCredit Bank Serbia (PCBS), marking the first time such a loan has been issued in local currency in the Western Balkans. Strengthening Capital and Regulatory Resilience The facility is designed to reinforce PCBS’s […]

Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke, has published a new report titled Market Demand for and Supply of Scaling Finance in Ireland, revealing a significant €1.1 billion gap in equity financing for Irish enterprises seeking to scale and expand internationally over the next two to five years. Key Findings Commissioned by the Department […]

Gene Hackman was found dead inside his New Mexico home on Feb. 26, 2025, at the age of 95. The acclaimed actor’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, had also died of a rare virus – a week before his death from natural causes. Details about the couple’s plans for Hackman’s reportedly US$80 million fortune are only starting […]

Fatal school shootings don’t just devastate communities emotionally – they also harm their economies, new research shows. People eat out less, avoid public spaces and generally spend less money after a tragedy strikes a local school. This has real economic consequences for neighborhoods that are already reeling. We are a team of marketing professors, and […]

Drive through the plains of Iowa or Kansas and you’ll see more than rows of corn, wheat and soybeans. You’ll also see towering wind turbines spinning above fields and solar panels shining in the sun on barns and machine sheds. For many farmers, these are lifelines. Renewable energy provides steady income and affordable power, helping […]

The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) revised Recommendation 16 (R.16 or ‘Travel Rule’) introduces new requirements to improve transparency in payment and value transfers. While these updates aim to combat money laundering, financing of terrorism, and fraud, they also raise important questions about how implementation will affect financial inclusion.   Throughout the revision process, the […]

In the first blog of our series on the World Bank’s latest Global Findex 2025, we highlighted that while notable progress has been made in financial inclusion since the Findex launched in 2011, there is much more still to be done.   To close the last-mile gaps and improve livelihoods by broadening the range of […]

The U.S. has an important choice to make regarding agriculture. It can import more people to pick crops and do other kinds of agricultural labor, it can raise wages enough to lure more U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal status to take these jobs, or it can import more food. All three options contradict key […]

It’s time to rethink how we serve the hardest to reach—and unlock the power of financial services for development.  New data from the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025, published this week, reveals significant progress on financial inclusion. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), 75% of adults have an account (compared with 79% globally), an increase […]

Pronatalism – the belief that low birth rates are a problem that must be reversed – is having a moment in the U.S. As birth rates decline in the U.S. and throughout the world, voices from Silicon Valley to the White House are raising concerns about what they say could be the calamitous effects of […]