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Connecting People with Finance: Mobile Money for Financial Inclusiveness (By Huawei advertorial)

By Elroy Mariano 1 week ago

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By Huawei advertorial

As mobile devices increase in popularity, individuals are embracing digital transformation more rapidly than most enterprises.

People are changing their habits, looking for new ways handling financial transactions, such as investing in stocks and managing portfolios.

However, financial services are not as common in some developing countries. In Ghana, for instance, many are ‘unbanked’, meaning they don’t have any proper bank account and are simply excluded from the financial system.

The Bank of Ghana estimates that some seven million people are unbanked, representing 22 per cent of the country’s population.

But while these people may not have access to appropriate financial services, but many of them have access to the internet, with online penetration in Ghana standing at around 64 per cent.

High mobile penetration leads to a new banking model

The country also has the highest mobile penetration in West Africa and already outperforms

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Three things people should know about Federal Reserve’s plan for low interest rates

By Elroy Mariano 1 week ago

(WFSB) – The Federal Seserve says it will keep interest rates at near zero for years.



a close up of a newspaper: There are as many as 10 million low-income, childless adults in the United States who are eligible for the federal government's stimulus payment program, but are at risk of missing out on the money, according to tax experts.

© Mark Wilson/Getty Images

There are as many as 10 million low-income, childless adults in the United States who are eligible for the federal government’s stimulus payment program, but are at risk of missing out on the money, according to tax experts.


It’s an effort to kickstart the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

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“The Federal Reserve, they control interest rates that the banks charge each other on overnight lending,” said Jay Rasmus, MahoneySabol. “What that means to people is money is cheap, mortgages are low, there are a lot of funds available.”

The first thing you need to know is borrowing is a bargain.

Jay Rasmus with MahoneySabol says you’ll likely see lower rates on loans and even credit cards as in incentive to encourage people to spend.

“Everyone is trying to

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India’s FamPay, a Neobank for Teenagers, Reveals that Most Tech-Savvy Young People are Still Making Cash Payments

By Elroy Mariano 2 weeks ago

Younger people in India including Millennials and Gen Z consumers are usually quite tech-savvy because most of them have grown up using the latest smartphones. They regularly use the internet to take care of everyday tasks – which may include conducting digital transactions for online purchases from e-commerce stores.

Many younger people may also be enrolled in online learning programs and may be completing even more activities in a digital environment following the COVID-19 outbreak. However, a recent survey from neobank FamPay reveals that the majority or 84% of Indian teenagers have been paying with cash for orders they’ve placed on digital commerce platforms.

FamPay’s survey obtained feedback from 1,200 teenagers (or GenZ users). It revealed important details about their spending habits and their preferred payment methods. According to the survey’s findings, Indian teenagers are mainly buying food items, clothes, and various accessories.

The survey found that 84% Indian teenagers

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Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Recession Will Hurt Low-Income People More Than The Wealthy

By Elroy Mariano 2 weeks ago

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that a coronavirus relief bill is
not likely to pass before the election.

Negotiations have stalled as President Trump has repeatedly changed his mind about whether he wants Congress to pass a new stimulus package. Meanwhile, new unemployment claims remain relatively steady with more than
800,000 people filing their paperwork each week.

A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, economist
Joseph Stiglitz says he would initiate a large spending program in response to the country’s economic issues.

“There are many, many people, the bottom half of our population, that are extremely vulnerable,” he says. “They live paycheck to paycheck. And for many of them, the paychecks aren’t coming in.”

The national debt is now more than
$27 trillion — nearly the size of the country’s entire GDP. It’s on track to exceed the

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‘We are at the finish line’ People can expect Lost Wages Assistance money soon

By Elroy Mariano 3 weeks ago

The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce says people should be able to see money from the Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) Program soon.

Lost Wages Assistance Program money coming soon, SCDEW says

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved the program for the state back on September 1st

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People who are hurting from the pandemic would receive $300 per week if they are receiving at least $100 in weekly benefit amounts from a state or federal program, by continuing to complete the mandatory claim certification each week and indicating there’s a job disruption due to the pandemic.

News 19 has received several calls and messages from viewers asking when the money would come through from the program.

Heather Biance, Media Relations Specialist with the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce (SCDEW), says people can expect money from the program soon.

“We

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Dear IRS: But What About Us ‘Little’ People?

By Elroy Mariano 4 weeks ago

Dear IRS: But What About Us ‘Little’ People?

Every time I look at my paystub, I want to vomit at the sight of how much money is taken out in taxes. Every time I pay an installment loan on my tax debt, I want to gauge my eyes out because I know the second I miss a payment, here comes the IRS threatening to garnish my wages.

None of my friends are millionaires, let alone thousandaires. But plenty of them are struggling with tax debt. Tax debt that can’t be prayed away. Tax debt that the IRS won’t bargain over with an offer in compromise. Tax debt that will probably follow them to their graves.

Unfortunately, none of us are Donald Trump.

The impeached president of the U.S. probably shouldn’t have been allowed to even run for president if his tax information was readily available. But as the recent New York Times article pointed out, Trump is swimming

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Saving Money: Startup Bets People Will Do It for a Chance to Win $10 Million

By Elroy Mariano 1 month ago

Man photographing check with smart phone

Photographer: Tetra Images/Digital Vision

Photographer: Tetra Images/Digital Vision

At a time when some Americans are being tempted to pour their savings into risky investments, the son of a Wall Street veteran is encouraging them to set aside more money.

Adam Moelis, whose father Ken Moelis runs investment bank Moelis & Co., has managed to attract new accounts worth almost $40 million in two months at his startup, Yotta Savings. The hook is that Yotta gives people a sweepstakes ticket for every $25 they save. A weekly drawing gives customers the chance to win between 10 cents and $10 million.

With 6,500 customer accounts, it still has a long way to go before it can catch up with competitors. Another banking challenger, Current, has gathered more than 1 million accounts since its 2015 founding. And several other rivals are entering the fray. Additionally, millions of people signed up this year with 

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If you got some extra money, what would you do with it? Many people say it depends how much extra it is

By Elroy Mariano 1 month ago

What would you do with an extra $100 a week — save it, spend it, or a bit of both?

What about if that $100 became an extra $500 a week?

In the countdown to the federal budget, we asked our Facebook Messenger subscribers how they’d use some hypothetical extra cash after a tough 2020.

Readers had some very different ideas of how they’d spend extra money if they had it — and how the choice would change depending how much extra they got.

See which category you fit into.

Save the $100, spend the $500

If I had an extra hundred dollars a week, I would put it directly into savings! Then we’d finally have some. An extra $500 a week? I’d treat my family to takeaway more than once a fortnight and I’d save the rest – we are single income with three children, and houses don’t get

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People Are Paying Good Money for Flights to Nowhere and It’s OK

By Elroy Mariano 1 month ago

The ongoing health crisis has wreaked havoc in every aspect of our modern life, with national healthcare systems being the hardest-hit. Relevant to our interests are the automotive and associated industries, like public transport and airlines. While automakers are already starting to look forward to the future again (even though sales continue to remain low), airline companies can’t even dream of the day when they’ll be able to do the same.

The reason is very simple: while you can still buy a car and drive it across the country, you can’t fly out of the same country. Safety precautions, travel restrictions, lockdowns and general common sense says you can’t. And, while you may have resigned yourself to the idea that it might be at least another year until you can safely board a flight to head out to your favorite vacation spot, airlines can’t afford to wait this much.

A

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Treasury: 70 percent of stimulus payment money sent to dead people has been recovered

By Elroy Mariano 1 month ago

Nearly 70 percent of the $1.6 billion in coronavirus stimulus payments that were sent to dead people has been recovered, a Treasury Department official told the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Treasury official’s comment was included in a GAO report published on Monday about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

“We were unable to verify that amount by the time we finalized our work on this report,” the GAO said in its report. “We are working with Treasury to determine the number of payments sent to decedents that have been recovered.”

A GAO official told The Hill that the office is still analyzing Treasury’s data.

A $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package enacted in late March provided for one-time direct payments for most Americans of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. According to the GAO’s report, Treasury and the IRS have disbursed 164 million payments, the vast

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