Kabir Kumar

Kabir Kumar leads Omidyar Network’s global policy and ecosystem building efforts. He is a former Senior Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, where he led CGAP’s Digital Finance Plus initiative and coordinated efforts in key markets in South Asia. Kabir helped launch CGAP's program on technology-enabled business models for financial services and worked closely with some of the pioneering implementations in the mobile financial services space.

Kabir has been an adviser to banks, mobile network operators, technology companies, and investors in over 15 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His work has been quoted in numerous media outlets including CNN, The Banker, Economist, and NPR. He has a dual master's degree in public administration and international relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.

By Kabir Kumar

Blog

Addressing Big Development Challenges with Financial Innovation

Financial innovation has great potential to help solve big development challenges in access to energy, water, education, health and agriculture.
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A History Lesson for Advancing Interoperability in Mobile Money

What can we learn from the past in markets like the United States and Japan that can help advance interoperability between financial service providers?
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The Future of Provider Ecosystems for Financial Inclusion

CGAP’s five-year strategy recognizes that in most countries poor people are more likely to get financial services from a range of commercial and public sector actors.
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Branchless Banking in Pakistan: the Glass Half and Full View

Branchless banking is flourishing in Pakistan, which is on track to become the most competitive mobile money market in the world.
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Does “Effective Interoperability” Equal Financial Inclusion?

The measurement of “effective interoperability,” depends on the ultimate policy goal, which could be financial inclusion. In the case of Pakistan, “effective interconnection” could facilitate a 100 million Pakistanis with electronic financial access within eight years.