IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services have won the first licenses awarded in a decade to set up banks in Asia's third-largest economy.

The Bangladesh city of Chittagong has been on the radar of Kiwi sports fans as the Black Caps play their T20 World Cup pool games there.

Obfuscatory. A word I want to repeat, Miranda-like, because it feels so good dropping out of my mouth.

A global survey has found that one in every six Kiwis ran out of money for food in 2011-12 - more than in all except eight other developed nations.

A charitable group is aiming to give away a million financial literacy work books to New Zealand students by 2020 to try to improve young people's wealth creation skills.

If the issue of inequality and poverty is to loom large in this election year there are a couple of cherished beliefs on both sides of politics that need to surrender to evidence, writes Brian Fallow.

Statisticians have discovered thousands more children and the elderly living in poverty than have been reported previously.

The number of Kiwi kids in poverty jumped by 60,000 in the recent global recession - twice as much as previously reported.

In 1998, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to see if she could get by working unskilled, low-wage jobs, a tradition dating back to George Orwell and Jack London.

The combined wealth of the 85 richest people in the world is the same as the combined wealth of the world's poorest 3.5 billion, writes Toby Manhire.

Pope Francis challenged business leaders assembled in Davos today to do more for the poor and ensure 'humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it.'

The measurement of child poverty is complex, hard to understand and has become a highly polarised matter, says John Dew.

Next year is election year and all the parties have an opportunity to show us their commitment to children, writes Russell Wills, Children's Commissioner.

Children's Commissioner, Dr Russell Wills, wants motorists, the well-off and the elderly to take less from taxpayers so that more public funding can go into tackling child poverty.

Aucklanders are queuing for up to seven hours for food parcels from the City Mission, as donations run thin.

Editorial: The Children's Commissioner has done well to raise independent funds for an annual report on child poverty, less well in publicising its first year's findings.

A new report on child poverty in New Zealand has been applauded by groups who have criticised the Government for failing to thoroughly monitor the issue itself.

Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills wants Kiwis to shift support from older, middle-income families to give more to our youngest and poorest children.

Our minimum wage is so low about 40 per cent of children living in poverty are not living in beneficiary families, but have low-wage-earning parents, writes Emily Keddell.

Inequality in New Zealand is rising. This is a fact. Damien Grant looks into it.

Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills has decided to publish his own annual stocktake of child poverty after the Govt spurned his call to publish official measures and targets.

A grim picture of hard times in the lucky country has emerged in a series of new reports on poverty, revealing a nation that welfare agencies say is splitting into two Australias.