News
Gates Foundation Provides $15.4 Million to Opportunity International To Help Build Microfinance Banks in Five African Nations 
PR Newswire, February 20, 2007
Opportunity International, one of the world's largest microfinance organizations, today announced it has received a $5.4 million grant and a $10 million loan from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $15.4 million of capital will fund start-up microfinance banks to serve the poor in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as expansion of its banking operations in Ghana. Opportunity International operates banks or financial institutions in 28 countries and is the world's largest microfinance bank organization serving the very poor.
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2007
Insurers Seek Growth In Developing Markets
By Ian McDonald, Liam Pleven and Eric Bellman , The Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2007
Last year, global insurance giant American International Group Inc. opened a garage-size office in this dusty town of about 50,000. Coming up soon here: a policy that insures a cow for a $10 annual premium.
Seeking potential sources of future growth, AIG and its international rivals are racing to sell insurance in the developing world, from sprawling markets like India to smaller ones like Romania and Nicaragua. In remote areas, insurers must teach the concept of insurance to populations who have never bought any.
>> More Details | created on: 02/16/2007
Yunus slates 'financial apartheid' against poor
By Pallab Bhattacharya, The Daily Star, January 30, 2007
Nobel Laureate and Grameen Bank founder Prof Muhammad Yunus has criticised the existing international financial institutions for shutting out the world's poor from receiving their credit.
While delivering the keynote address at the international conference to commemorate the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's 'Satyagraha' form of political movement here yesterday, Prof Yunus also advocated the concept of social business to address socio-economic problems.
>> More Details | created on: 02/09/2007
Money sent home 'more than aid'
BBC News, January 16, 2007
Migrant workers sending money home has become the biggest source of foreign income in some poor European countries, the World Bank has said.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2007
Working home and away
BBC News, January 16, 2007
A new report published by the World Bank says migrant workers sending money home has become the biggest source of foreign income in some poor European countries.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2007
Mexican insurers go for 'microinsurance' 
Business Week, December 14, 2006
Just as Mexico's microfinance lenders have carved out a lucrative niche making tiny loans to some of the country's smallest entrepreneurs, a handful of insurers are proving that it can be profitable to sell life insurance to the country's working poor and lower-middle class.
"The issue isn't that the population doesn't have the economic capacity, disposable income, or an insurance culture, rather we as insurance companies need to adapt to their means," said Alfredo Honsberg, chief executive of insurance company Seguros Azteca, in an interview.
>> More Details | created on: 01/12/2007
Citi plans thumbprint ATMs for India poor
Financial Times, December 1, 2006
Citigroup is rolling out a network of biometric automatic cash machines aimed at illiterate Indian slum dwellers, using the latest technology to woo the country's millions of "unbanked" poor.
The machines will recognise account holders' thumbprints, eliminating the need for a personal identification number, and will have colour-coded screen instructions and voiceovers to help guide them through transactions.
>> More Details | created on: 12/07/2006
Micro-loans empower women entrepreneurs
By Doris Dumlao, Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 26, 2006
TWO women—a former factory worker who now runs a thriving peanut butter business and a handicraft manufacturer who once worked as a household helper to put herself through school—have earned top honors for setting up microfinance businesses that unshackled their families from poverty while creating jobs in their communities.
>> More Details | created on: 12/07/2006
In Mexico, Banco Wal-Mart
Business Week, November 20, 2006
For years, Wal-Mart has tried to get into banking in the U.S. But so far it has come up empty-handed as everyone from rival banks to unions rose up in opposition. South of the border, though, the world's biggest retailer may soon receive a banking license, paving the way for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to offer checking and savings accounts, loans, credit cards, and more across its network of 863 outlets in 130 Mexican cities.
>> More Details | created on: 11/21/2006
Big banks follow Nobel winner's lead in lending to the poor
By Justin Cole, WBCSD, November 14, 2006
Robert Annibale clearly enjoys his role as a globe-trotting senior banker for US giant Citigroup, but his clients are unusual because they have no credit histories, scant savings and are often illiterate.
Major international banks have traditionally shunned the world's poorest people, but bankers like Annibale are suddenly waking up to the potential of this huge untapped market.
"It's really in many ways about the expansion of access to financial services to all stratas of people. There are hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who are very economically active and don't have basic bank services," Annibale, Citigroup's global director for microfinance, told AFP in an interview.
>> More Details | created on: 11/21/2006
Vikram Akula, Founder & CEO of SKS Microfinance
CNN.com, November 13, 2006
Vikram Akula is on an economic mission: to empower India's poor.
His drive to fight poverty led to the birth of the Hyderabad-based SKS in 1998. It is a microfinance company that lends small amounts of money, typically $100, to impoverished women.
The cash is used to buy everything from animals to irons so clients can start their own homegrown ventures. SKS started out as non-profit but later changed its status and is now one of the fastest growing microlenders in the world.
With role models like Mohammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his microfinance work, Akula is in good company. CNN's Andrew Stevens asked the former management consultant why he made this career choice.
>> More Details | created on: 11/21/2006
Invest in tiny loans' huge payoff
By Patricia Arias, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 13, 2006
Today's anti-poverty advocates might suggest the following 21st century twist on an ancient truism about fighting poverty: "Give a woman a fish, and she eats for a day. Give her a small loan to buy the fishing rod and tackle, and she eats for a lifetime --- and feeds her children, too." This updated version of an old parable captures the wisdom of microcredit, now widely recognized as a viable tool for helping the world's poor to help themselves.
>> More Details | created on: 11/14/2006
Easy Money
By Claire Cain Miller, Forbes.com, November 13, 2006
Microcredit is booming in India, but the loans don't often pull people out of poverty.
>> More Details | created on: 11/14/2006
City scents new market in cash sent home by migrants
By Gabriel Rozenberg, The Times, November 13, 2006
City institutions are joining a new gold rush to cash in on the biggest stream of money that is flowing into developing countries.
The global market in sending money home has doubled in the past five years, with cash sent home by hundreds of millions of low-paid economic migrants outstripping multinational investment and government aid.
>> More Details | created on: 11/14/2006
Farmers’ small loans cultivate knowledge
By Amy Yee, Financial Times, November 10, 2006
Eight years ago, 30-year-old Siddama and her husband made Rs25 a day as agricultural workers in a village in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The couple’s 12-year-old son was pushed into bonded agricultural labour because of heavy loans taken out by the family after a drought-hit crop failed.
But through a loan of Rs1,000 from SKS, a Hyderabad-based microfinance company, Siddama was able to pay off her debts and start selling vegetables. She repaid the loan within a year and borrowed Rs3,000 to lease fruit trees, then Rs4,000 to buy a fishing net the following year.
>> More Details | created on: 11/14/2006
ICICI Seeks 25 Million Rural Clients to Lift Growth
By Sumit Sharma and Cherian Thomas, Bloomberg, November 8, 2006
ICICI Bank Ltd., India's biggest by market value, plans to lend to 25 million rural clients in five years to sustain record loan growth as the government curbs credit to customers in the cities.
The bank will use branches, franchises, telephone kiosks and automated teller machines to lift its rural customer base eightfold, Deputy Managing Director Chanda Kochhar said in an interview in Hyderabad, southern India. Mumbai-based ICICI aims to screen borrowers and approve loans of as little as $100 at sites located every 10 kilometers (6 miles) across India.
>> More Details | created on: 11/10/2006
Wiring Development
By Editorial, The New York Times, November 2, 2006
The Inter-American Development Bank announced last month that Latin American migrants working in the United States will send a record $45 billion to their families back home this year. At that level, remittances represent the largest and most direct poverty reduction program in the region, topping by far the amounts of foreign aid provided by the United States.
>> More Details | created on: 11/02/2006
Credit will cut rural poverty in India
By Amy Yee , Financial Times, October 31, 2006
Microfinance in India, -currently focused on small loans for the rural poor, is growing fast enough to make an impact over the next -decade, according to a new report.
However, the sector must focus on transparency and governance, training local partners, and developing a more diverse menu of services, says the report, released yesterday at a microfinance conference in New Delhi.
>> More Details | created on: 11/10/2006
Microcredit not working in China, new initiative needed
People's daily online, October 27, 2006
Statistics shows that only 27.3 of China's rural households have benefited from microcredits provided by rural credit cooperatives. The total value of microcredit loans distributed by over 100 microcredit institutions is merely one billion yuan.
>> More Details | created on: 10/27/2006
Efforts geared up to introduce mobile banking
Dawn.com, October 20, 2006
The ministry of information technology has directed the country’s telecom regulator and services providers to work closely with the central bank and remove hurdles in the way of introduction of electronic mobile banking in Pakistan.
Mobile banking facility is in place in many developing countries consisting of comprehensive banking services including money transfer, cash-in, cash-out, person to person transfer, bill payments, on-line purchases etc.
However, the lack of coordination among various stakeholders has hindered the availability of these services in Pakistan.
>> More Details | created on: 10/27/2006
Migrant remittances from the United States to Latin America to reach $45 billion in 2006, says IDB
IDB, October 18, 2006
New study estimates 12.6 million immigrants are sending home more money more frequently
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Latin America remittances support investments
By Richard Lapper , Financial Times, October 18, 2006
Latin Americans working in the United States are sending back more money to their families and investing increasing amounts in homes and small businesses, according to a study commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank.
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Microloan Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize
By Anand Giridharadas and Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, October 13, 2006
The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, for pioneering microcredit — using loans of tiny amounts to transform destitute women into entrepreneurs.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
US Banks woo migrants, legal or otherwise
By Miriam Jordan, The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2006
As U.S. leaders craft policies to curb illegal immigration from Mexico, the U.S. Federal Reserve is devising programs to extend banking services to undocumented immigrants. A new remittance program aims to bring Mexican migrants who send money home into the mainstream U.S. financial system, regardless of their immigration status.
Dubbed "Directo a Mexico," the remittance program enables U.S. commercial banks to make money transfers for Mexican workers through the Federal Reserve's own automated clearinghouse, which is linked to Banco de Mexico, the Mexican central bank.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
Microfinance Institutions Reach Crucial Agreement with Government in Andhra Pradesh, India
MicroCapital, October 11, 2006
In a broad reaching agreement, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) operating in Andhra Pradesh, India have reached an agreement with the state government on MFI interest rates, product portfolio, inter-MFI competition, credit disbursement and loan recovery methodologies. An agreement pertaining to a smaller jurisdiction – the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh was earlier reported on MicroCapital.
As per the terms of the agreement, MFIs have agreed to an interest rate ceiling of 15%. They have agreed to desist from providing multiple credit to an existing borrower and recover loans at a pace compatible with the borrower’s income level. MFIs are also to remain strictly within the micro-credit domain, avoiding micro-insurance products.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
Uganda: MFIs Want Moneylenders Regulated
By Ibrahim Kasita, allAfrica, October 8, 2006
MICRO-Finance Institutions (MFIs) have asked the Government to check the higher interest rates levied by moneylenders who have threatened the industry.
While MFIs' interest rates are between 19%-29%, moneylenders' rates are 30% and above. Money lending is legal, but requires written contracts between the lender and the borrower.
The moneylender is obliged to keep proper records of accounts. Unlike MFIs, moneylenders do not require application, processing, monitoring and insurance fees or compulsory savings, yet MFIs require that.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
ICICI Bank plans new products in remittances business
The Hindu, October 8, 2006
Buoyed by the robust performance of its remittances business, private sector banking powerhouse, ICICI Bank plans to launch a slew of innovative products in this segment before the end of this fiscal.
The bank also plans to scale up its presence in the Gulf besides exploring alliance possibilities with overseas banks to boost this business, especially in the emerging markets.
"We have a few innovatively-structured products tailor-made for the remittances market in the pipeline slated for launch before March 2007," Manish Misra, Head, Remittances, ICICI Bank, told PTI here.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
Fertile Ground: Hedge Founds Travel to Africa
By Alistair MacDonald, The Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2006
For 20 years, whenever Congolese businessman Kalaa Mpinga wanted to finance projects in sub-Saharan Africa, he would turn to agencies like the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. Now, rather than international development agencies, two hedge funds -- Lansdowne Partners Ltd. and Marshall Wace LLP -- are among his biggest investors. Together, they own more than 12% of the company he heads, Mwana Africa PLC.
"Today, you will get far more results by going to the market and raising your finance that way," says Mr. Mpinga, chief executive of Mwana Africa, a mining company that went public on the London Stock Exchange last year, after obtaining the listing of a rival African miner it acquired.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
Migrants' remittances: the good and the bad
By Andres Oppenheimer, Miami Herald, September 28, 2006
When mayors of about a dozen Latin American and Caribbean cities met in Miami this week to exchange ideas about their common problems, they touched on an issue that is seldom talked about: the possible link between migration, family remittances and Latin America's rising crime rates.
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Kalam unveils LIC's micro insurance product
The Economic Times, September 28, 2006
President A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday unveiled Life Insurance Corporation's insurance product which seeks to benefit economically underprivileged segments of society.
The new policy, Jeevan Madhur, will cover individuals in 18-60 year age group. The minimum sum assured under the plan is Rs 5,000 while maximum is Rs 30,000. The premium for the policy can be paid weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly.
The minimum premium is Rs 25 per week, Rs 50 for fortnightly, Rs 100 per month and Rs 250 for other premium paying periods.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
India's BIG microfinance revolution
By Nandini Lakshman, Business Week, September 25, 2006
ICICI Bank is a big money-center lender that deals with sizable companies in Bombay, Bangalore, and New Delhi. It is also one of India's biggest consumer lenders. So why does Nachiket Mor spend a lot of time in India's economically depressed rural hinterland looking for prospective borrowers?
He recently visited a family of five living in a soot-covered hut, getting by at barely subsistence levels in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Mor signed off on a one-year, $130 loan that will allow the family to buy a buffalo and sell its milk. And written into this loan contract is a most unusual clause. If the animal isn't milking, the family gets a moratorium on its monthly loan repayment.
>> More Details | created on: 09/29/2006
Citigroup in microfinance programme
By David Wighton, Financial Times, September 22, 2006
Citigroup, the US bank, will on Friday announce plans to lend an initial $100m to microfinance institutions in the developing world, underlining the increasing interest in microfinance by mainstream business.
The funding will help capitalise hundreds of micro-finance institutions, which provide very small loans to individuals in developing countries, and will be particularly focused on smaller institutions that have not traditionally received finance.
The programme, which involves a $70m guarantee from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US government agency, is due to be formally announced by Hillary Clinton at a session of the Clinton Global Initiative.
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
Bill to regulate microfinance sector on cards
The Economic Times, September 21, 2006
International venture funds foraying into microfinance will not have to grapple with conflicting rules of operation. The government is preparing a bill to regulate the sector, which is expected to grow to Rs 35,000 crore, by ’10. The big funds planning to make a foray into the sector include, the Maharashtra government promoted VC Fund -Urjankur, UK-based CDC, Unitus Private Equity and Delhi-based Lok Capital.
Even IFC has set up a fund with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC), for the purpose. Finance ministry services special secretary Vinod Rai said on Wednesday, the microfinance legislation will be tabled in the winter session of Parliament.
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
Uganda to Cap Interest Rates Charged By Microfinance Institutions
Microcapital, September 20, 2006
The Ugandan government capped the interest rate that microfinance institutions may charge. According to New Vision Kampala, the new rule sets rates at or below inflation, which stood at 8.1% in 2005. Microfinance institutions in Uganda currently lend at rates of 18 to 100 percent.
Interest rate caps tend to reduce the supply of microcredit, as fewer microfinance institutions enter the industry and existing ones scale back operations, reports Eric Duflos of The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Uganda’s President, however, stated August 7, 2006 that “the aim of microfinance is to boost the productivity of the rural poor rather than turn a profit”. Consistent with that belief, he recently criticized the “high interest rates” in the country (MicroCapital Blog: August 24, 2006).
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
TIAA-CREF Creates $100 Million Global Microfinance Investment Program
Yahoo News, September 19, 2006
TIAA-CREF, the leading provider of retirement savings products and services in the academic, medical and cultural fields, today announced the creation of a $100 million Global Microfinance Investment Program (GMIP) to invest in selected Microfinance Institutions (MFI's) worldwide. Concurrently, TIAA-CREF also announced GMIP's first investment -- a $43 million private equity stake in ProCredit Holding AG, one of the world's leading microfinance companies.
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
EBRD signs first Mongolia project, microfinance loan
Yahoo News, September 13, 2006
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed its first project in Mongolia on Wednesday, a $5 million loan to XacBank, which specialises in microfinance.
The funds will be lent on to small and micro-businesses throughout the country.
XacBank, licensed four and a half years ago, offers loans ranging in size from $27 to $150,000, according to its Web site (www.xacbank.org).
>> More Details | created on: 09/15/2006
Banks bet on booming remittances
By Joel Rebello, DNA India, September 11, 2006
With an increasing number of Indians living abroad, either for work or having settled there, foreign exchange remittances into the country is likely to increase, market players say.
India receives the largest amount of remittances in the world, “getting over 10% of the $230 billion global market, according to World Bank numbers,” says Manish Misra, ICICI Bank’s head of global remittance. He expects the business to grow 15-20% annually in the next 4-5 years.
“It is inevitable that, with the need for overseas workers, India will remain a big market for the remittance business,” Misra says. The bank’s remittance service, Money2India, has a 22% market share in the Indian business.
>> More Details | created on: 09/29/2006
Unitus Equity Fund L.P. Invests $1,000,000 in Credex
HipanicBusiness.com, September 6, 2006
The Unitus Equity Fund L.P., a private equity fund which invests in emerging microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Asia and Latin America, today announced an investment in Credex (Grupo Crediexpress S.A. de C.V.), an MFI in Mexico. The Fund's investment of $1,000,000, its first investment in Mexico, will support Credex's work to bring financial services to more of Mexico's poor. The Unitus Equity Fund is affiliated with Unitus, Inc., a leading microfinance organization based in Redmond, Washington. Co-investing with the Unitus Equity Fund in Credex are Controladora Project S.A. de C.V., a Mexican investment fund, and several individual Mexican investors.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
UN stresses female migrants’ role on remittances
By Mark Turner, Financial Times, September 6, 2006
Women migrants play a disproportionate role in determining the level of remittances sent home to developing countries, a new UN report has found, but international policy makers have largely ignored their contribution.
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Bangladeshi who founded bank for poor wins peace prize
Yahoo News, September 6, 2006
The Bangladeshi who established a bank for the poor has been named winner of the eighth Seoul Peace Prize.
The biennial prize of 200,000 dollars, awarded to Muhammad Yunus, honours peace efforts by politicians, academics, activists and international organizations.
"His tireless endeavor to root out poverty and create a new model of giving credit to the poor will bear fruit in terms of greater peace in the world," the Seoul Prize Cultural Foundation said.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Fighting poverty $1 at a time
By Shahreen Abedin, CNN.com, September 5, 2006
It all started with $50. In 1988, that's what it took Noni Bala Ghosh to revive her family's business of making sweets to sell in Kholshi, her tiny village in Bangladesh.
Family members had given up the business because they could no longer afford to buy milk to churn into rich chhana, a thick cottage cheese used to make creamy sweets.
Driven to despair, Noni heeded the advice of several women in her village who had taken loans from Grameen Bank, a lending organization that developed the poverty-busting lending program known as "micro-credit," in the 1970s.
Through a series of small loans from the bank, she soon bought a cow and began to supply her own milk, and eventually engaged her two sons and husband, Gopal, to help support the family business she led. After 3 1/2 years, Noni had become the key supplier to a prominent sweets shop in Dhaka. Once again, she could afford to feed and clothe her family.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Gates Foundation Awards $1.5 Million to Grameen Foundation
Grameen Foundation USA, August 29, 2006
Grameen Foundation, a leading global microfinance organization, today announced it has received a $1.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support its work worldwide. The three-year grant will support Grameen Foundation’s strategic plan to reach five million additional new families, ensure that 50 percent of them permanently escape poverty within five years of becoming a microfinance client, and champion innovations that transform the microfinance industry. The unrestricted grant is GF’s third largest grant in support of this five-year plan launched in 2004.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
India's Banks Are Big on Microfinance
By Nandini Lakshman, Yahoo News, August 23, 2006
ICICI Bank (IDN) is a big money-center lender that deals with sizable companies in Bombay, Bangalore, and New Delhi. It is also one of India's biggest consumer lenders. So why does Nachiket Mor spend a lot of tie in India's economically depressed
rural hinterland looking for prospective borrowers? He recently visited a family of five living in a soot-covered hut, getting by at barely subsistence levels in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Mor signed off on a one-year, $130 loan that will allow the family to buy a buffalo and sell its milk. And written into this loan contract is a most unusual clause. If the animal isn't milking, the family gets a moratorium on its monthly loan repayment. "The client would need to find other money to service the loan or even sell the buffalo to pay us, which would be counterproductive for both of us," explains Mor, deputy managing director at ICICI.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Tanzania: Bank Sets Aside $5 Million to Lend to Informal Sector
allAfrica, August 22, 2006
Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania will set aside $5 million to assist Tanzania's small and medium firms. The chief executive Hemen Shah last week told The EastAfrican that the institution had signed an agreement with PRIDE Tanzania, a small micro-provident fund, to finance the project.
He said the bank's entry into the micro-lending sector signifies its confidence in the development of the sector. "Our lending rates to the micro finance sector are very competitive. We take into consideration a number of factors ranging from the amount borrowed to the credit risk associated with the transaction," he said.
According to Mr Shah, micro finance is a specialised sector that requires special skills in terms of loan administration and follow-up of projects. "The bank has started with PRIDE Tanzania, but we are discussing with other organisations with whom we can co-operate in a similar programme," he said.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Uganda: Micro Finance Institutions Need Help
By Sarah Nakibuuka, allAfrica, August 21, 2006
Government should establish a fully-fledged Credit Reference Bureau to provide accurate information relating to the creditworthness of borrowers. What is happening today with the micro-finance institutions is debt collection through court bailiffs and not credit referencing. Adequate information on credit referencing works to reduce the number and amounts of bad loans underwritten by lenders, thereby reducing the cost of borrowing and increasing the amount of well-underwritten loans. The World Development Report (WDR 2005) shows that information on credit history can reduce the processing time, costs, and default rates by more than 25%.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Microcredit and moneylending in India
The Economist, August 17, 2006
MONEYLENDERS bad; microcredit good. That has been the common view about financial services in much of the Indian countryside. Traditional moneylenders charge extortionate interest rates to those in desperate need.…
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Microfinance Pioneer ACCION Reaches Milestone of Assisting Two Million Poor Annually
CSRwire.com, August 16, 2006
ACCION International, a pioneer and leader in microfinance, today announced that the number of poor entrepreneurs it reaches annually with small loans and other financial services through its network of global partners has surpassed two million.
With half the world living on $2 a day or less, effective tools to help alleviate global poverty are of paramount importance; ACCION’s work increasingly demonstrates that microfinance provides such a tool. The nonprofit organization makes ‘micro’ loans as small as $100 through partners to poor men and women who start their own businesses; 97 percent of those loans are repaid. While it took 20 years for ACCION and its partners to reach their first million clients, it took just three years to surpass the second million. ACCION’s strategic goal is to reach three million active clients by 2008.
>> More Details | created on: 09/12/2006
Kenyan bank to use IT to link East Africa
BusinessinAfricaonline, August 11, 2006
Nairobi - Kenyan, Tanzanian and southern Sudanese nationals would shortly begin to bank in any of the three countries when the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) completes the rollout phase of its latest computer technology, a KCB executive has said.
According to Dr Tony Githuku, the bank's technology and operations divisional director, the bank was in the process of acquiring new advanced banking software to link its subsidiaries in the three East Africa countries before the end of the year.
>> More Details | created on: 08/14/2006
Microloans May Work, but There Is Dispute in India Over Who Will Make Them
By Tyler Cowen, The New York Times, August 10, 2006
MICROFINANCE is based on a simple idea: banks, finance companies, and charities lend small sums — often no more than a few hundred dollars — to poor third world entrepreneurs. The loan recipients open businesses like tailoring shops or small grocery stores, thereby bolstering local economies.
But does microfinance, in fact, help the poor?
>> More Details | created on: 08/10/2006
What works at the top doesn’t work at the base
By Charo Quesada, IDBAmerica, August 8, 2006
Hobbled by an inadequate and often incomplete basic education, low-income people in Latin America and the Caribbean are forced to take low-skill jobs that offer few opportunities for training or advancement. Obviously, they are also a distinct disadvantage when it comes to starting and running a business. As Alejandro Espinosa of Grupo Nueva of Chile put it at the IDB conference "Building Opportunities for the Majority, “successful businesses can’t happen in failed societies.”
>> More Details | created on: 08/08/2006
Seattle may shape "Microfinance 2.0"
By Kristi Heim, The Seattle Tomes, August 2, 2006
It's not hard to understand why the idea of microfinance appeals to technology entrepreneurs like Kintan Brahmbhatt.
Making tiny loans to help very poor people start businesses fosters entrepreneurship, he said.
Brahmbhatt, a Microsoft program manager, is convinced this innovative approach to dealing with poverty has the potential to change the world. He's become an advocate for microfinance at the company, in the Seattle area and in his native India.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
Micro-insurance - "Reaching out to the poor"
By Interview with Vipin Sharma, Program Director for Micro Finance at CARE India, WBCSD, July 31, 2006
Allianz and CARE are cooperating to offer the people in the tsunami-struck region of Tamil Nadu micro-insurance products. Vipin Sharma, Program Director for Micro-finance at CARE India, speaks about the project.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
A Little Money Goes A Long Way
Business Week, July 24, 2006
Using the power of social networking to help small businesses around the world.
Ann Brown and Maria Martinez have never met, but last March Brown loaned Martinez $50. It was part of a $400 loan Martinez needed to get her clothing store up and running in Danli, Honduras. She used the cash to buy colorful hairbands, bright shirts, frilly button-downs, and baby onesies. Sales have picked up, and now Martinez is paying Brown back in monthly installments via the Web site on which they found each other, Kiva.org. "When I was starting my handbag business, a neighbor wrote me a check for the startup capital," says Brown, who sells bags at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. "I had nothing, and that made it possible for me."
>> More Details | created on: 07/24/2006
The Big Promise of Small Loans
By Ben Gose, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 20, 2006
Veena Mankar, a banker in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India,
looked at the slums in her city and wondered why needy people in urban areas could not benefit from the same access to loans and other financial services that many of the rural poor enjoy.
So Ms. Mankar raised $50,000 from friends and family to explore microfinance— the offering of financial services to the poor in developing countries, a practice that has flourished in the villages in southern India thanks to government incentives. But she nearly abandoned her efforts when she could not find grants to subsidize her operation until it became selfsufficient.
>> More Details | created on: 09/12/2006
High finance reaches Bangladesh's poor
Yahoo News, July 6, 2006
Tiny loans for Bangladesh's rural poor became part of a groundbreaking financial product on Thursday through one of the world's first "microcredit" securitisations.
>> More Details | created on: 07/07/2006
Uganda: USAID Pushes for Rural Mobile Banks
By D. Livingstone Ssempijja, allAfrica.com, June 28, 2006
BANKING institutions have been urged to start rural mobile banking services to attract more people into the banking industry and help the country instil a savings culture; much lacking in Uganda.
The service that involves making banking transactions through a combination of banking technologies such as Point of Sales Services, Automated Teller Machines, Mini-ATMs (Movable ATMs) and mobile phones does not necessarily require bankers to visit banks.
>> More Details | created on: 06/30/2006
South Africa: Branson Raises Flag for 'Fleeced SA Consumers'
By Rob Rose, Business Day, June 27, 2006
VIRGIN founder Richard Branson has launched an assault on the second high-fee industry in SA within a week -- ploughing R120m into launching the cheapest credit card in SA yesterday and setting his sights on a full-blown financial services business.
>> More Details | created on: 07/31/2006
Remittances Policy That Works: The Case Of Ghana.
Ghana Web, June 24, 2006
There is a growing interest in the role of remittances in the Ghanaian economy. This interest has been heightened by the recent increase in the flow of remittances to Ghana. Remittances to Ghana amounted to over $4.5 billion in 2005, making it the largest foreign exchange earner. About 30 percent of this amount ($1.5 billion) came from individuals while the remaining amount came from religious and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs.)
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
The New Frontlines of Capitalism: Microcredit Comes to Borguindé
By Nathalie Boittin, The Globalist, June 22, 2006
The success of the Grameen Bank's microcredit model in Bangladesh has spawned similar programs throughout the world. The West African state of Burkina Faso is one such example. Peace Corps volunteer Nathalie Boittin offers her first-hand experience of some of the achievements and difficulties in setting up a system of microcredit loans among a group of women in Borguindé.
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
IFC Supports Madagascar’s SME Sector with First-of-Its-Kind Investment
IFC Press Release, June 13, 2006
Antananarivo, Madagascar / Washington, D.C., June 13, 2006—The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, will provide joint risk-sharing with the Republic of Madagascar and two local banks to make loans available to owners of small and medium enterprises. This is the first joint investment under the International Development Association/IFC Pilot Program for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa.
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
Microfinance: Fighting world's poverty through investment
By Rania El Gamal, Kuwait Times, June 13, 2006
KUWAIT: For the world's poor getting a loan to start up a business is almost impossible, because of the strict rules most banks follow including the necessity to borrow against collateral. However, microfinancing - though not a totally new financing concept - is growing more popular now that it helps the poor and yet manages to get a bit of cash for the lenders. Microfinance can be defined as the provision of comprehensive financial services to micro-entrepreneurs.
>> More Details | created on: 06/13/2006
NAPEP Unveils New Poverty Reduction Scheme
By Crusoe Osagie, This Day Online, June 7, 2006
National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), has unveiled a ground-breaking approach to wealth creation for the poor.
>> More Details | created on: 06/08/2006
R100m deal set to help SME sector
The Herald Online, June 6, 2006
STANDARD Bank and the National Urban Reconstruction and Housing Agency, signed a R100-million agreement in Johannesburg yesterday aimed at financing established contractors in the small and medium enterprises sector.
>> More Details | created on: 06/06/2006
Using the Same Tape Measure: MicroRate To Launch Tool for Rating Microfinance Funds
By Bill Baue, SocialFunds.com, May 24, 2006
The rating tool, a project supported by Gray Ghost Microfinance Fund, Omidyar Network, and Gates Foundation, is yet another step toward establishing microfinance as a distinct asset class.
>> More Details | created on: 05/31/2006
Loans essential to SME development
China Economic Net, May 22, 2006
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have played an important role in the development of China's economy. As of the end of 2004, SMEs accounted for 58.5 percent of the country's GDP (gross domestic product), 66 percent of patent rights and 74 percent of technology innovation, according to Li Jun, vice-president of the Export-Import Bank of China. They developed 82 percent of the country's new products and made up 68.3 and 69 percent of total exports and imports respectively.
>> More Details | created on: 05/25/2006
Micro-credit banks give poor rich aspirations in Ghana
By Laurie Goering, Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2006
ACCRA, Ghana -- The sparkling new bank, down the street from Accra's bustling Makola market, looks like a financial institution anywhere: Six busy teller windows, a new accounts desk, air conditioning holding the steamy heat outside at bay.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
Microfinance gets VC nudge
By Tricia Duryee, Seattle Times, May 22, 2006
Chris Brookfield sees similarities between building a technology startup and lifting people out of poverty.
As odd as it sounds, the former Seattle venture capitalist is doing just that by applying his investing skills to microfinance.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
Muhammad Yunus - the man behind microcredit
By Wendy Braanker, Radio Netherlands, May 16, 2006
Professor Muhammad Yunus, the man behind the small loans or microcredit system, has just been in the Netherlands to receive the Freedom from Want Award 2006. While he regards the award as recognition for his work, this economist from Bangladesh says it's much more important that more people become aware that the provision of small loans - microcredit - is a way for the world's impoverished to escape from the vicious poverty trap. It's a method which too few people - in Africa and Latin America especially - are making use of.
>> More Details | created on: 05/18/2006
India: Largest international banker to diversify into agribusiness financing
Sify Business, May 10, 2006
Standard Chartered, the largest international banker in India, has firmed up plans to enter agriculture and commodities financing during 2006. It will also consolidate its operations in traditional as well as in the growing retail banking sectors.
>> More Details | created on: 05/25/2006
Malaysia: SME Bank launches five new loan schemes
Business Times, Malaysia, May 5, 2006
SME Bank has come up with five loan schemes specially designed to help different types of small- and medium- scale enterprises flourish in the years ahead, it was announced yesterday. With the exception of SME Professional which was launched in December last year, the new loans are SME Start-Up, SME Procurement, SME Franchise and SME Global.
>> More Details | created on: 05/25/2006
Moving Money In A Borderless World
By Monica Showalter , Yahoo News, May 2, 2006
Raul Hinojosa has a revolutionary idea.
Hinojosa says, the poor have buying power, are open to technology and can help launch new businesses.
Entrepreneurs who understand this, he says, can help the poor, as well as themselves, get richer.
Hinojosa believes in his offbeat idea so much that he founded a company called No Borders 18 months ago.
The company provides debit and stored value card services for immigrants that can be used globally.
>> More Details | created on: 05/02/2006
Future Capital to foray into retail of financial products
By Kala Vijayraghavab and R Sriram, The Economic Times, April 26, 2006
Mumbai: Future Capital, a majority-owned company of Pantaloon Retail, is chalking out a massive foray in the next few months into the manufacture and retailing of financial products, based roughly on a Latin American model.
>> More Details | created on: 04/26/2006
ICICI Bank Targets 250 MFI's
By Sunita Jyoti, The Financial Express, April 14, 2006
Besides retail, ICICI Bank, the second-largest commercial bank, has aggressively doubled its rural microfinance and agri-business
loan portfolio over a period of nine months. The outstanding in group's total rural microfinance and agri-business portfolio has increased to Rs 10,000 crore compared to Rs 5,200 crore last year.
>> More Details | created on: 04/17/2006
Six Trends Will Drive Sustainable Development, According to PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers, April 10, 2006
Sustainable development will steadily advance over the next 10 years, with six major trends influencing industry world-wide, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers' report, "Corporate Responsibility: Strategy, Management and Value." The challenge of creating strategies that meet immediate needs without sacrificing the needs of future generations will be driven by the growing influence of: global market forces; revisions in corporate governance; high speed innovation; large scale globalisation; evolving societal requirements and communication, the report says.
>> More Details | created on: 04/11/2006
HK explores new ways to help poor people
China View, April 6, 2006
More than 300 participants from various sectors on Thursday attended the Conference on Social Enterprise to discuss new approach to helping the poor.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
Nonprofits Pursue Private Investors
By Clay Holtzman , Puget Sound Business Journal, April 2, 2006
Redmond-based Unitus Inc. recently completed a $9 million initial close on a $20 million private equity fund meant to buy stock in its microfinance partners. The new money will provide additional resources for the nonprofit's eight microfinance partners, which are located abroad and backed by Unitus-facilitated grants and loans.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
Keya Sarkar: Micro finance awards tell a story
By Keya Sarkar, Business Standard, February 28, 2006
India is taking small steps as a nation to address the lack of access to financial instruments of nearly 600 million people, but also the mainstream financial sector has suddenly discovered a new asset class.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
New infoDev Report on m-Commerce
By InfoDev, February 24, 2006
The proliferation of mobile communications in developing countries has the potential to bring a wide range of financial services to an entirely new customer base. This report explores the use of mobile phones to expand financial services in the Philippines.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
The Birth of Philanthrocapitalism
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
RELATIVE to the corporate environment, we are in the 1870s. But philanthropy will increasingly come to resemble the capitalist economy, predicts Uday Khemka, a young Indian philanthropist and a director of the SUN Group investment company owned by his family.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
The Business of Giving
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
Philanthropy is flourishing as the number of super-rich people keeps growing. But the new donors are becoming much more businesslike about the way their money is used, says Matthew Bishop.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
MTN's CSR Initiative Wins GSM Association Award
Africa News, February 17, 2006
>> More Details | created on: 02/17/2006
Microfinance Sector Comes Under Spotlight
The Herald / All Africa Global Media via COMTEX, February 8, 2006
THE provision of an effective and appropriate regulatory and supervisory framework for microfinance institutions will see them playing a crucial role in Zimbabwe's economic transformation.
>> More Details | created on: 06/13/2006
Business Prophet
By CK Prahalad, Business Week, January 23, 2006
This article discusses how strategy guru C.K. Prahalad is changing the way CEOs think.
>> More Details | created on: 01/27/2006
All They Need is a Fair Chance to Compete
By Heather Stewart , The Observer, January 22, 2006
Hilary Benn tells Heather Stewart that, far from being the enemy, the global private sector is the one certain way that poverty can be made history.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
Putting Paid to Poverty
By Al Hammond & Bill Kramer, January 17, 2006
"Putting Paid to Poverty" provides a hopeful scenario for the development of the 'base of the pyramid' over the next ten years.
>> More Details | created on: 02/17/2006
A New Way to Do Well by Doing Good
By Rachel Emma Silverman, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2006
Making tiny loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries has long been a popular charitable cause, but it is now gaining traction as an investment.
>> More Details | created on: 02/07/2006
World Bank committed to invest USD 1 billion in India for Rural empowerment
By Michael Carter, Confederation of Indian Industry, December 21, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/05/2006
Micro-Credit to Be Channeled Through Community Banks - Kpakol
Africa News, November 29, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/03/2006
Can Africa Join the Investment Revolution
By Africa Business, November 29, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/09/2006
A Proposition to Eradicate Poverty
By Jesse Moore, November 11, 2005
This article takes an in depth look at the pros and cons of eradicating poverty through profit. The author notes we need to rebuke the idea that we are playing a zero-sum game and embrace the possibility that growth and poverty reduction, done right, are mutually reinforcing pursuits.
>> More Details | created on: 12/21/2005
Founder of Ebay sets up Dollars 100m microfinance aid fund
Financial Express, November 4, 2005
The Dollars 100m (Euros 84m, Pounds 56m) fund, which will be run for profit by endowment managers at Tufts University in the US, marks a growing trend among a new generation of philanthropic entrepreneurs and technology billionaires to seek market-based solutions to global poverty rather than rely solely on traditional charities.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Microfinance: What Role for Commercial Banks?
By Perrine Fiorina & Axel Pierron, Celent, September 8, 2005
In a new report, "Microfinance: What Role for Commercial Banks?", Celent analyzes the microfinance industry and provides detailed information on microfinance stakeholders.
Microfinance refers to products and services designed for low-income entrepreneurs and provided by microfinance institutions (MFIs). "The microfinance industry is still in its infancy, and only 10% of MFIs are profitable. The main challenges for MFIs are attaining profitability, capacity building, diversification of products and services, and transparency," says Perrine Fiorina, Celent analyst and co-author of the report.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
The Financial Markets Are Waking Up
By Gavin Power, Compact Quarterly, August, 2005
A quiet revolution is underway in global financial markets – one that could significantly alter international investment flows in ways that reward companies with a serious commitment to corporate citizenship.
After years of fits and false starts, members of the mainstream investment community – be they pension trustees, asset managers, securities brokers, project lenders or insurers – are actively pursuing the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into core investment processes. And many are now rallying around the newly minted acronym “ESG” to describe their efforts.
>> More Details | created on: 08/11/2006
For the Poor, Help from MBAs
By Francesca DiMeglio , Business Week Online, August 1, 2005
This article discusses how many MBAs are bringing microfinancing, business development—and eventually a consumer economy—to many impoverished Third World areas.
>> More Details | created on: 01/05/2006
Pennies from the poor add up to fortune
By David Ignatius, The Korea Herald, July 1, 2005
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A Richer Future for India
McKinsey Quarterly, July 1, 2005
Analyzes Indias growth potential beyond IT and outsourcing services.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Selling to the Poor: There is a Surprisingly Lucrative Market in Targeting Low-Income Consumers
By Kay Johnson & Xa Nhon, Time Magazine, April 25, 2005
Identifies the lucrative market in targeting low income consumers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
The Global Compact: A Business Perspective
International Chamber of Commerce, July 1, 2004
A look at the Global Compact as businesses begins to take more of a role in International Development.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Deutsche Bank: microcredit development fund
Deutsche Bank Microcredit Fund, May 1, 2004
The Deutsche Bank Microcredit Fund was conceived as a vehicle to combine the interest, abilities, reach, and resources of Deutsche Bank and its Private Bank clients to support the long-term sustainability of microcredit institutions.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Local Entrepreneurial Skills & Sustainability in Rwanda's Community Internet Centers
DOT-COMments e-newsletter, 2004
Addresses how local entrepreneurial skills are leading to sustainable growth in Rwanda’s Community Internet Centers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
The Corporate Key: Using Big Business to Fight Global Poverty
By George C. Lodge, Foreign Affairs, July 1, 2002
The authors analyze a new approach to global development addressing a global corporate alliance that brings business know-how and profit motive into play.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Balancing Sustainability with Service to the Poorest of the Poor
By Sharda Naidoo, Changemakers.net, May 1, 2002
Discusses Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) in South Africa which is one of the world's most financially successful and efficient microfinance programs, having reached a level of sustainability critical to the viability of microfinance lending.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Academic Research
Evidence of Microfinance’s Contribution to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
By Christopher Dunford, Freedom from Hunger, November 12, 2006
Can sustainable microfinance increase outreach and impact large number of poor?
>> More Details | created on: 10/27/2006
Microfinance as Business
By David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi, Center for Global Development, October 13, 2006
CGD research fellow David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi analyze microfinance institutions (MFIs) as businesses, asking how some succeed in covering costs, earning returns, attracting capital, and scaling up.
>> More Details | created on: 11/10/2006
Microfinance as Business
By David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi, Center for Global Development, October 13, 2006
CGD research fellow David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi analyze microfinance institutions (MFIs) as businesses, asking how some succeed in covering costs, earning returns, attracting capital, and scaling up. They draw on existing literature and interviews with industry players and academics. Key microfinance business challenges include building volume, keeping loan repayment rates high, retaining customers, and minimizing scope for fraud.
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Discovering Hidden Assets--Financing the Base of the Pyramid
Development Alternatives Vol. 10, Issue 1, December, 2005
A collection of policy issues pertaining to the Base of the Pyramid
>> More Details | created on: 03/06/2006
Microcredit in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Terry F. Buss, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 7, No. 1; , June, 2005
The stark reality is that most poor people in the world still lack access to sustainable financial services, whether it is savings, credit, or insurance. The great challenge before us is to address the constraints that exclude people from full participation in the financial sector. The International Year of Microcredit offers a pivotal opportunity for the international community to engage in a shared commitment to meet this challenge.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
Informal Finance for Private Sector Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Ernest Aryeetey, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 7, No. 1; , June, 2005
Discusses what can be done to make informal finance and microfinance suitable for financing growing small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Sub-Saharan Africa.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
Outcomes of an Ethiopian Microfinance Program and Management Actions to Improve Services
By Shannon Doocy & Dan Norell, et al, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 7, No. 1; , June, 2005
This paper examines the impact of participation in an Ethiopian microfinance program on indicators of socioeconomic status including wealth, income, and home or land ownership.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
South African Pro-poor Microfinance Institutions
By Ted Baumann, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 7, No. 1; , June, 2005
This article compares the performance of selected South African microcredit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have a poverty-alleviation focus against various benchmarks drawn from the MicroBanking Bulletin. Donors, governments, and many analysts regard sustainability as the benchmark of microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) performance.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
Microcredit, Social Capital, and Politics: The Case of a Small Rural Town--Gossas, Senegal
By Jainabah M.L. Kah & Dana L. Olds, et al, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 7, No. 1; , June, 2005
Through an exploratory approach, we studied the evolution, sustainability, and management of ten microcredit institutions located in Gossas, a small town in Senegal, Sub-Saharan Africa. Prevailing ideas about social capital, in the form of social relationships within and between microcredit institutions and financing NGOs, donors, and governments, are examined using both rational choice and Marxist social capital theories to highlight the social struggles in social capital.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
Scaling-Up Microfinance for India's Rural Poor
By Priya Basu & Pradeep Srivastava, World Bank Policy Research Working Papers No. 3646, June, 2005
The paper reviews the current level and pattern of access to finance for India's rural poor and examines some of the key microfinance approaches in India, especially looking at the Self Help Group (SHG) Bank Linkage initiative.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2006
Fulfilling India's Promise
By Rajat K. Gupta, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
The article discusses how India must take steps to boost its economic prospects, lift its living standards, and improve opportunities for the multinational companies that do business there.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Impact of Microfinance Programs on Children's Education: Do the Gender of the Borrower and the Delivery Model Matter?
By Nathalie Halvoet, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This article highlights the effects particular features of microfinance programs have on childhood education. Using data from a South India household survey, the article examines how microfinance impacts schooling and literacy, how credit enters the household, and who brings it in.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
The Transformation of the Microfinance Sector in India: Experiences, Options, and Future
By M.S. Sriram & Rajesh S. Upadhyayula, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This paper discusses the growth and transformation of microfinance organizations (MFO) in India. Issues that have triggered transformation include size, diversity, sustainability, focus, and taxation.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
The Experience of Financial Institutions in the Delivery of Microcredit in the Philippines
By Maria Abigail Carpio, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This paper identifies the characteristic features of the different financial market players involved in the delivery of microcredit in the Philippines and looks into their experiences in addressing the credit demand of the smallborrower market segment, particularly the microenterprise sector. This paper argues that each group of lenders, specifically commercial banks, rural banks, credit-granting NGOs, and an apex financial institution, allocates its funds by establishing its own criteria for assessing the creditworthiness of borrowers and its own mechanisms to avoid borrower default.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Microleasing: The Grameen Bank Experience
By Asif Ud Dowla, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of Grameen's leasing program. Instead of providing a full-fledged impact assessment study, we examine the terms and conditions of the leasing program and evaluate its success in terms of outreach, repayment rate, and asset ownership. Analysis of program level data shows that the program is successful in terms of outreach and repayment performance. The success of leasing suggests some important lessons for MFIs. It shows that poor people have diverse credit needs and that to help the poor borrowers to graduate out of poverty, MFIs have to provide different and flexible products.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
From Rags to Cashmere: The BOP Success of Khan Bank Mongolia
By Morrow, J. Peter & Sukhbold, S., Presentation given at Eradicating Poverty through Profits conference, San Francisco, CA , December, 2004
>> View Article | created on: 03/06/2006
Implications of Financial Innovations for the Poorest of the Poor in the Rural Area: Experience from Northern Bangladesh
June, 2004
Grameen demonstrated that the poor are viable clients for loans and reached them on a massive scale. However, they reach only the upper level of the poor and provide narrow and limited financial services with rigid systems and procedures, which in many ways do not address the needs of the poorest. Despite earning signs of success with their SafeSave innovative approach to serving the poorest in the urban area, this rural adaptation and experiment has faced challenges because of the different social and economical structures of the rural economy and the different pattern of poverty dynamics in the rural area.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh: Is it Reaching the Poorest?
By Dipankar Datta, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
Empirical studies give strong evidence that microcredit has had positive effects on two vital areas of national development; namely, the alleviation of poverty and the empowerment of women. Despite these positive impacts, some critics question the efficacy of microcredit in reaching the extreme poor. Some argue that while microcredit has contributed positively to the well-being of the poor in general, it has failed to reach the poorest of the poor. This paper explores the reasons why microcredit programs rarely reach the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Community-Based Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Nepal: A Sustainable Means for Microfinance Delivery?
By Chris D. Gingrich, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
The paper argues that while savings-led microfinance in Nepali SCCs is a slow process, there is significant long-term outreach potential in local communities. The government and donors should pursue institutionbuilding strategies to strengthen Nepali SCCs and should not provide concessionary funding.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Microfinance and Poverty Alleviation in the Caribbean: A Strategic Overview
By Jonathan G. Lashley, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
The following paper highlights the main issues that emerged from the results of a recent study into microfinance in the Eastern Caribbean (Lashley & Lord, 2002), of which the primary aim was to make recommendations for the best practice for successful microfinance provision.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Money Talks: Conversations with Poor Households in Bangladesh about Managing Money
By Stuart Rutherford, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
This paper describes the money management behavior of 42 low income Bangladeshi households, half of them rural and half living in urban slums. They were found to be active managers of their financial resources. Households appear to be using financial instruments of all kinds to build lump sums of money for immediate expenditure rather than to build up long-term, large financial assets or to hold highvalue, long-term debt. These sums were overwhelmingly formed in the informal sector. The role of the MFIs is thus somewhat contradictory. Their outreach into these households is excellent but their share of the total money management activities of the households is small. The paper concludes that both MFIs and poor households would benefit if MFIs achieved a better understanding of current and potential demand for financial services by the poor and tailored products and delivery systems accordingly.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Rural Finance, Poverty Alleviation, and Sustainable Land Use: The Role of Credit for the Adoption of Agroforestry Systems in Occidental Honduras
By Ruerd Ruben & Luud Clercx, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
This paper analyzes the relationship between financial services provided by different agents, the adoption of agroforestry systems, and the implications for food security and sustainable soil management. Attention is focused on the role of rural finance in reducing risk and stabilizing household income and yields. We conclude that credit provision performs critical functions for reinforcing the resilience of rural livelihoods in less favored areas. Rural development programs in the Occidental region of Honduras have been rather reluctant to provide rural financial services.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Challenges to Sida's Support to Private Sector Development: Making Markets Work for the Poor
Sida Provisional Edition, October, 2003
The document forms a background to Sida's action for private sector development by 1. Taking a stand in the overriding objectives and values underlying Swedish development assistance; 2. Explains how private sector development can be an effective instrume
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa: Implications for Agrifood Systems and the Rural Poor
By Weatherspoon, Dave D. & Reardon, Thomas, Development Policy Review, May, 2003 (Vol. 21 pp. 333-355)
Supermarkets are proliferating beyond middle-class big markets into smaller towns and poor areas. Supplying supermarkets presents both potentially large opportunities and big challenges for producers. Supermarkets' procurement systems involve purchase con
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
SHG-Bank Linkage Program in India: An Overview
By Hema Bansal, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 5, No. 1; , March, 2003
The formal financial institutions in India have ventured into microfinance in a massive way by adopting the SHG-Bank Linkage Program model.The present paper makes an attempt to review the performance of the program in different states of India and across three major institutions—commercial banks,cooperatives,and the regional rural banks.The study also presents vital information about the leading NGOs with major credit linkages in Indian states.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Designing Microfinance from an Exit-Strategy Perspective
By Larry Hendricks, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 5, No. 1; , March, 2003
In bilateral microfinance projects, exit strategies or "handover" phases generally have not proven very successful. Institutions, groups, or processes designed with the sole purpose of implementing microfinance projects, to the exclusion of promoting postproject sustainability, tend to develop vulnerabilities that lead to their programs’ failure. To counter this problem, China ’s Chongqing Comprehensive Poverty Alleviation Project (CCPAP)takes a different tack, designing an exit-strategy approach into its microfinance program from the outset. While still in the design phase, this approach has raised several critical issues that must be resolved.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
How Corporations and Environmental Groups Cooperate: Assessing Cross Sector Alliances and Collaborations
By Dennis A. Rondinelli & Ted London, Academy of Management Executive, 2003 (Vol. 17 No. 1, 2003)
Gives a set of strategic criteria for executives who are interested in participating in more intensive cross-sector collaborations on environmental issues with their nonprofit counterparts
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Reputation as Insurance: Extending the Range of Financial Services for the Poor
By Loic Sadoulet, January, 2003
In this paper, we explore how financial institutions specialized in lending to the poor ("microfinance insitutions") can use information of previous interactions to allow borrowers to build reputations that can then be used to insure borrowers unable to meet their loan repayment obligations.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2006
The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid
By Hart, Stu & Christensen, Clayton, MIT Sloan Management Review, September, 2002 (Fall 2002)
The authors illustrate their point of how and when BOP can be successful with examples of companies that are already profitably disrupting such industries as telecommunications, consumer electronics and energy production.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Unfinished Business: The Need for More Effectrive Microfinance Exit Monitering
By James Copestake, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
High rates of exit remain the "Achilles heel" of many microfinance organizations. After reviewing definitional issues, the paper explores how exit rates adversely affect both their commercial and social objectives. It then reviews case studies of exit monitoring based on routine, questionnaire based and focus group methods, making detailed suggestions as to how data collection, analysis and reporting can be improved.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
To Pay or Not to Pay: Local Institutional Difference and the Viability of Rural Credit in Nicaragua
By Johan Bastianensen & Ben D'Exelle, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
This analysis suggests that the evaluation of credit enterprise performance should take into account differences in local institutional environments and that efforts should be made to fine-tune standard financial technology to more adverse institutional conditions. If not, the microfinance industry may tend to exclude more difficult and poorer rural areas.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
PACT's Women's Empowerment Program in Nepal: A Savings- and Literacy-led Alternative to Financial Building
By Jeffrey Ashe & Lisa Parrott, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
CARE's Mata Masu Dubara (Women on the Move) Program in Niger: Successful Financial Intermediation in the Rural Sahel
By William J. Grant & Hugh C. Allen, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September 1, 2002
This article examines the nature of markets for rural financial services in the Sahel and the characteristics of the MMD model that respond so well to that market. It also reviews the limitations of the model, and some of the adaptations that CARE has introduced to successfully replicate the program in numerous other countries in Africa.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Ashrai: A Savings-Led Model for Fighting Poverty and Discrimination
By Brett Matthews & Dr. Ahsan Ali, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
Ashrai is getting results with a savings-led model among minority peoples in northwest Bangladesh. These people are mostly landless and illiterate, and earn about $50 a year per person. They are a vital population segment that microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and elsewhere are unable to serve successfully. Ashrai takes an innovative approach based on intensive capacity building to help clients build small, informal financial intermediaries. Savings mobilization,institution-building, and education/literacy interventions work together to support the efforts of some of the world's poorest people to build a base of economic power and self-respect.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
By C.K. Prahalad & Stuart L. Hart, Strategy+Business, January, 2002 (Issue 26, First Quarter 2002)
Dispells some of the assumptions regarding selling to the poor and discusses how companies can both maximize their profits and help the poor
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Building Better Lives: Sustainable Integration of Microfinance and Education in Child Survival, Reproductive Health, and HIV/AIDS Prevention for the Poorest Entrepreneurs
By Christopher Dunford, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 3, No. 2; , September, 2001
This paper provides diverse examples of microfinance institutions that have responded successfully to the challenge of integrating microfinance with nonfinancial services, without compromising the impacts or sustainability of their microfinance and overall operations. Special attention is given to the integration of microfinance with health education for very poor women, including the promotion of family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention management. The credit and education components reinforce each other by addressing the informational as well as the economic obstacles to health and nutrition.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Microcredit and the Rural Poor: A Review of the Maharashtra rural Credit Project
By Raghav Gaiha, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 3, No. 2; , September, 2001
An attempt is made to review the Maharashtra Rural Credit Project (MRCP) - a microcredit scheme - by focusing on the process of implementation and its implications for targeting, empowerment of women, and trade-off between coverage of the poorest and sustainability of this scheme. Attention is drawn to deficiencies in the design and implementation of this scheme that limit the participation of the poorest and the benefits accruing to them. Moreover, it is argued that there is risk of overstating the trade-off between the coverage of the poorest and sustainability of the MRCP if these deficiencies are overlooked.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Do the Poor Pay More? An Empirical Investigation of Price Dispersion in Food Retailing
By Hayes, Lashawn Richburg, Princeton Dept of Econ., Industrial Relations Working Paper, November 7, 2000 (No. 446)
The paper gives mixed research on the question of whether prices are higher in poor, urban neighborhoods.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
India as a Source of Innovations
By C.K. Prahalad, 2000
Analyzes and the old mindset of the poor as an intractable problem and shows how currently there has been a shift in this mindset to one of the poor as an active market and the Bottom of the Pyramid as a source of innovation for this market.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Bringing Development Back into Microfinance
By Maria Otero, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 1, No. 1; , September, 1999
The purpose of this paper is to explore three points at which microfinance intersects with development: reaching the poor, building sustainable microfinance institutions, and deepening the financial system's reach. The paper argues that it is microfinance's ability to connect in all three of these points that make it so compelling as a development strategy. These three dimensions of microfinance are not a discussion about the trade-offs of one over the other; without all three, the strong points of intersection between microfinance and development will fade into oblivion and microfinance will become either a set of highly profitable institutions that have abandoned their market, or a set of insignificant donor-dependent and localized credit programs.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Are Grameen Replications Sustainable, and Do They Reach the Poor?: The Case of CARD Rural Bank in the Philippines
By Hans Dieter Seibel & Dolores Torres, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 1, No. 1; , September, 1999
The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is known worldwide for its success in providing credit to the poor. However, subsequent replications of its methodology in other parts of the world have been less successful. Is there really an infallible solution that works everywhere, and is outreach to the poor compatible with sustainability?
>> More Details | created on: 01/25/2006
The Microcredit Summit's Challenge: Working Toward Institutional Financial Self-Sufficiency While Maintaining a Commitment to Serving the Poorest Families
By David S. Gibbons & Jennifer W. Meehan, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 1, No. 1; , September, 1999
Cost-effective identification of the poor and the poorest women is essential to maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of providing microfinance services to them. If the service is not exclusively for the poor and the poorest, it should be operated separately for them to minimize leakage to the nonpoor.
>> More Details | created on: 01/25/2006
Innovation and Growth with Rich and Poor Consumers
By Zweimuller, Josef & Brunner, Johann K., CEPR Discussion Paper Series, April, 1998 (No. 1855)
This paper studies the impact of income inequality on the level of innovative activity in a model where innovations result in quality improvements.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Searching for Sustainable Microfinance: A Review of Five Indonesian Initiatives
By R. Marisol Ravicz, World Bank Policy Working Paper No. 1878 , February, 1998
Lessons about the implementation of microfinance operations from five initiatives in rural Indonesia.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
Cases
Vodafone: economic empowerment through mobile
Vodafone, February 20, 2007
Following a successful pilot program in Kenya, Vodafone is rolling out a service that allows customers to access cash via their mobile phones. Called M-PESA, the service allows customers to borrow, transfer and make payments using a mobile phone, transforming financial services by making transactions cheaper, faster and more secure.
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said his company sees significant growth potential in emerging markets like Kenya partly because research shows that mobile technology can revolutionize social and economic growth in these countries
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2007
Microfinance for shelter
International Institute for Environment and Development, June, 2006
The world of housing finance has changed very significantly over the last ten years. In particular, small-scale lending for land purchase, infrastructure investment and housing improvements has increased significantly. Ten years ago, the state programmes in Thailand had barely started, while the housing subsidy programme in South Africa was being conceived of as a capital grant. Microfinance agencies had a “toe in the water” approach to shelter lending, and the urban poor funds that now are a firm feature of SDI programmes had been launched in only one country. NGO shelter lending continued, and had been taking place for many years, but programmes remained relatively disconnected from other financial systems and institutions. Hence they remained smallscale revolving loan funds assisting relatively small numbers of families. The landscape is now very different.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2007
Safety Nets for the Poor: A Missing International Dimension?
By Sanjay G. Reddy, October 19, 2005
Poor persons in poor countries are greatly exposed to the risk of adverse shocks, many of international origin, which can create long-lasting damage to individual well-being. There is a strong moral and practical case for taking measures which reduce the extent to which such shocks arise, and diminish their adverse effects.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
Share MicroFin Limited: India's Largest Microfinance Organization
By R. Meenakshisundaram & R. Fernando, ICFAI Centre for Management Research, March 1, 2005
Within just over a decade, SHARE Microfin Limited (SML) grew from a small society into India’s largest microfinance organisation. During the initial years, the organisation had to face many challenges with regard to customer acceptance, fund mobilisation, government regulation and operational issues. However the organisation had adapted the Grameen model to the local conditions and had even transformed its constitution from that of a society to a public limited company so as to attract funds from private sector banks. The organisation sustained its growth momentum over the years, through innovative fund mobilisation efforts using partnership models with private sector banks and structured deals like securitisation.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Serving the Poor: Do Embedded Ties Matter?
By Pablo Sánchez, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez & Joan Enric Ricart , IESE Business School, January 1, 2005
In the past, the 4.6 billion people living in poverty were considered anything but a market. Recently, however, several authors have suggested that by stimulating commerce and development in low-income segments, multinationals could radically improve the lives of billions of people and help create a more stable and inclusive world. In order to succeed at this challenging goal, companies need not only to innovate strategies, business models and products, but also to better understand the market and local customer needs.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING
By Werhane, Patricia H. & Gorman, Michael E., et al, December 7, 2004
This series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufactur
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Partnering for mutual success: DaimlerChrysler – POEMAtec Alliance
By Yerina Mugica, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, November 10, 2004
DaimlerChrysler formed an alliance with the Poverty and Environment in Amazonia Research and Development project (POEMA) to reforest previously cleared land to produce continuous yields year-round and process these harvests within the region.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
A development bank’s success with micro-finance: Banco do Nordeste’s CrediAmigo
By Yerina Mugica, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, April 16, 2004
An estimated 15.7 million people in Brazil work in the informal economy as micro-entrepreneurs, outnumbering formal sector entrepreneurs by more than three to one. Of these informal micro-entrepreneurs, 93% run profitable businesses. However, 84% of these micro-entrepreneurs do not have access to credit.
In November 1996 at a meeting in Fortaleza, the World Bank and Banco do Nordeste, a development bank formed to support growth in northeastern Brazil, decided to initiate a collaborative process to jointly implement a local development program based on the idea of micro-credit. Motivated by the fact that small informal companies – family owned and small properties - were not being served by the Bank's financing activities due to the restrictive regulation of Brazil's Banking Systems, Banco do Nordeste and the World Bank decided to develop and launch a pilot low-income bank, targeting micro-entrepreneurs from informal sectors.
>> More Details | created on: 07/14/2006
ABN AMRO's Real Microcredito: A Multinational Bank’s Entry into the Micro-credit Market
By Yerina Mugica & Federico Moura , April 15, 2004
An estimated 15.7 million people in Brazil work in the informal economy as micro-entrepreneurs, outnumbering formal sector entrepreneurs by more than three to one. Of these informal micro-entrepreneurs 93% run profitable businesses, 84% of whom do not have access to credit. It is estimated that 50% of these micro-entrepreneurs would apply for a micro-credit loan if they had access to banking services. This figure represents a potential of US$ 3.7 billion per year in loans.
>> More Details | created on: 07/14/2006
Vodacom: Extending telecom services to South Africa’s poor
World Business Council on Sustainble Development, February 2, 2004
Vodacom has confronted the enormous challenge of providing subsidized public cellular telephones in under-serviced and rural areas by seting up stationary phone shops or kiosks with multiple lines, all connected to Vodacom's existing infrastructure through a wireless link.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Businesses Are Helping to Overcome Global Poverty
By Stern N, Richard Ivey Business School, January 1, 2004
The facts today point to a decline in global poverty and to the reality that global economic development is working. These positive developments are due to policies pursued by both public organizations and the international business community. But as the Chief Economist of the World Banks says, business can do even more to help the world's poorest countries.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Casas Bahia , Brazil
By Sami Foguel & Andrew Wilson, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Through a unique business model, Casas Bahia has developed an innovative way to bring consumer products to the poor in Brazil.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
AKASHGANDA, India
By Ajay Sharma & Akhilesh Yadav, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, August 1, 2003
This case dicussess the work SKELPL, a small bussiness in India, which has used innovative solutions to automize the milk collection process at local dairy cooperatives.
>> More Details | created on: 04/13/2006
Expanding the Playing Field: Nike's World Shoe Project, Asia
By Ted London & Heather McDonald, World Resources Institute, 2002
The case analyzes Nike's international expansion and highlights strategic and internal challenges faced by multinational companies attempting to create a foothold in emerging markets, and investigates the sustainability issues surrounding market entry into the bottom of the pyramid.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Books
Mobile Banking: Knowledge Map and Possible Donor Support Strategies
Department for International Development (DFID), March 9, 2007
infoDev and DfID jointly commissioned this knowledge map on m-banking aimed at helping the development community more clearly define the "knowledge gaps" and the "targeted interventions" required to facilitate the expansion of mobile-enabled financial services.
>> More Details | created on: 03/09/2007
The Development Impact of Remittances in Latin America
By Pablo Fajnzylber and J. Humberto López, World Bank, November 2, 2006
The report analyzes the characteristics of households that are remittance recipients and how these characteristics affect the poverty-reducing impact of observed remittances flows. It also devotes significant attention to the macroeconomic impact of these flows, and explores policies and interventions aimed at enhancing the development impact of remittances in the region.
>> More Details | created on: 11/02/2006
Sending Money Home. Leveraging the Development Impact of Remittances
Inter-American Development Bank, October 18, 2006
Remittances sent to Latin America and the Caribbean from all parts of the world are expected to be more than $60 billion in 2006, surpassing both the amount of official development assistance and foreign direct investment to the region. Money transfer costs have been reduced by over 50 percent. Remittances constitute one of the broadest and most effective poverty alleviation programs in the world, reaching approximately 20 million households in the LAC region alone.
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families
By Sam Daley-Harris, May 23, 2006
Compiled and edited by Sam Daley-Harris (Founder and President of RESULTS Education Fund), Pathways Out Of Poverty: Innovations In Microfinance For The Poorest Families is a study of how to best help the 1.2 billion people worldwide who subsist on less than $1 a day. Pathways Out Of Poverty is a detailed survey and analysis of microfinance as a means of loaning very small amounts of money to help families become self-sufficient. Individual chapters cogently address the special concerns of HIV/AIDS prevention among the poorest fifth of the entrepreneurial world; how microfinance can empower women and how microfinance can improve reproductive health. Pathways Out Of Poverty is a very highly recommended reading for anyone concerned with creating tangible, effective solutions to the age-old problem of endemic poverty.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
A Billion to Gain? A Study on Global Financial Institutions and Microfinance
By EIBE - Institute of Business Ethics, Netherlands, February, 2006
Microfinance is on the rise. Since the mid-1990s domestic commercial banks have had a significant and positive influence on the access to financial services through microfinance. Only recently have international commercial banks come more to the foreground. In the past year, the UN International Year of Microcredit 2005, various major international banks announced that they will initiate or expand their activities related to microfinance. The purpose of this study, commissioned by ING Microfinance Support and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to study the initiative international banks are taking, and how this relates to the activities of domestic banks.
>> More Details | created on: 05/31/2006
The Profile of Microfinance in Latin America in 10 Years: Vision and Characteristics
By María Otero and Beatriz Marulanda, Accion International, April, 2005
The study examines the state of the microfinance industry in Latin America today and looks at the challenges and opportunities in the coming decade. It also provides recommendations about the role of banks, specialized microfinance institutions, NGOs, regulators, donors and governments in assuring a healthy industry with an ever-broader outreach. These analyses are based on statistical data from approximately 100 MFIs and interviews with 28 microfinance players.
>> More Details | created on: 05/11/2006
Capitalism at the Crossroads
By Stuart L. Hart, Wharton School Publishing, March 30, 2005
Global capitalism stands at a crossroads—facing international terrorism, worldwide environmental change, and an accelerating backlash against globalization. Today's global companies are at a crossroads, too: finding new strategies for profitable growth has never been more challenging. Both sets of problems are intimately linked, says Stuart L. Hart—and so are the solutions.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Banking at the Base of the Pyramid: A Microfinance Primer for Commercial Banks
USAID, February, 2005
The primer provides a concise summary of the issues and options facing bankers when designing and implementing microfinance programs.
>> More Details | created on: 01/27/2006
Profits with Principles: Seven Strategies for Delivering Value with Values
By Ira Jackson & Jane Nelson, Currency, June 29, 2004
At a time when unethical business practices continue to dominate the business press, PROFITS WITH PRINCIPLES offers persuasive proof that when businesses combine profit making with a concern for values and the greater good, they do better in the marketplace than those that concentrate only on the bottom line.
>> More Details | created on: 02/14/2008
The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty and the Threat to Global Stability
By William Lewis, University of Chicago Press, April 16, 2004
The disparity between rich and poor countries is the most serious, intractable problem facing the world today. The chronic poverty of many nations affects more than the citizens and economies of those nations; it threatens global stability as the pressures of immigration become unsustainable and rogue nations seek power and influence through extreme political and terrorist acts. To address this tenacious poverty, a vast array of international institutions has pumped billions of dollars into these nations in recent decades, yet despite this infusion of capital and attention, roughly five billion of the world's six billion people continue to live in poor countries. What isn't working? And how can we fix it?
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact
By Claude Fussler (editor) & Aron Cramer, et al, Greenleaf Publishing, 2004
Raising the Bar, produced by a unique team of business experts and UN agencies, is designed to fill a critical vide - poches the support of more than 1,000 organisations for the globally recognised Principles of the United Nations Global Compact and the need for this support to be translated into the day-to-day running of business to create value and improve performance.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
How to Change the World: Social Enrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
By David Bornstein, Oxford University Press, December 1, 2003
What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, writes David Bornstein, the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up--and remake the world for the better.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2003
By Sam Daley-Harris, Unitus, November 3, 2003
For over six years the Microcredit Summit Campaign has relentlessly pursued its goal of reaching 100 million of the
world ’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by 2005. The Summit ’s goal was adopted at the 1997 Microcredit Summit, held in Washington,D.C.,and attended by more than 2,900 delegates from 137 countries.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
By Muhammad Yunus, October 14, 2003
Bangladesh, a country the size of Florida with a population of over 120 million people, is the home of Grameen Bank, the inspiration of economist Yunus, Bangladesh-born and U.S.-trained. Instead of spending his life as a university economics professor, Yunus decided in the mid-1970s to develop a micro-lending program to help the poorest people of his country. Yunus based the program on his strong belief that the very poor do not need complicated training programs to improve their economic lot. They need money, in the form of loans. This program has empowered thousands of people, many of them women, and surprised experts in economic development who never believed that the very poor would find the initiative and ability to repay even the smallest ($25-$500) loans. Grameen ("of the village") Bank has developed into an internationally acclaimed and replicated method for assisting the impoverished in Malaysia, the Philippines, Nepal, and even the United States.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
A New Financial System for Poverty Reduction and Growth
By Biagio Bossone & Abdourahmane Sarr, International Monetary Fund, October 1, 2002
The proposal draws on the premise that the availability of stable demand deposits for bank lending, in the process of which inside money is created, does not require any act of intentional saving. The authors argue that separating inside money creation from lending, and distributing it on a nonlending basis to depositors through specialized payment service institutions, could broaden access to financial resources, fuel non-inflationary, demand-led growth; and foster financial deepening, diversification, and stability.
>> More Details | created on: 02/07/2006
The Commercialization of Microfinance: Balancing Business and Development
By Deborah Drake & Elisabeth Rhyne, ACCION , 2002
The Commercialization of Microfinance documents the issues that have arisen from the entrance of microfinance into the commercial realm. The book explores how institutions have managed the transformation process, supervisory and regulatory concerns and governance issues. It also examines the role of private investment, the impact of credit unions, and the introduction of competition to the field. Country and institutional case studies provide real-life examples of these complex issues
>> More Details | created on: 03/13/2006
Access to Credit and Its Impact on Welfare in Malawi
By Aliou Diagne & Manfred Zeller, International Food Policy Research Institute ISBN: 0-89629-119-7, April, 2001
>> View Article | created on: 03/13/2006
Mainstreaming Microfinance: How Lending to the Poor Began, Grew and Came of Age in Bolivia
By Elisabeth Rhyne, ACCION, 2001
The history of the microfinance movement in Latin America is brought to life through the lens of the Bolivian experience in Mainstreaming Microfinance. Microcredit in Bolivia grew and became successful in only a decade, lifting an enormous segment of the country's population into the financial mainstream in the process. Drawing on participant interviews, Elisabeth Rhyne, details how Bolivia's special breed of social entrepreneurs found the keys to unlock the huge unmet demand of informal clients.
>> More Details | created on: 03/13/2006
Rapid Assessment Process
By James Beebe, Rowman and Little, 2001
Rapid Assessment Process (RAP) has gone under many names but invariably uses the techniques of fieldwork and ethnography in a telescoped manner to provide solid, field-based research findings for use by policymakers and program planners. It uses an emic perspective, a team of researchers, triangulation of research findings, and iterative process to produce high-quality research in a fraction of the time taken by traditional ethnography.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Development as Freedom
By Amartya Sen, Anchor Books, August 15, 2000
Development as Freedom is a general exposition of the economic ideas and analyses of Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. This brilliant and indispensable treatise compellingly analyzes the nature of contemporary economic development from the perspective of human freedom. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of economic life and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. It is a good to be enjoyed by the world's entire population. Drawing on moral and political philosophy and technical economic analysis, this work gives the nonspecialist reader powerful access to Sen's paradigm-altering vision and vividly shows how he, in the words of the Nobel Prize committee, has both "restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems" and "opened up new fields of study for subsequent generations of researchers."
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank and the Idea That Is Helping the Poor to Change Their Lives
By David Bornstein, July 1, 1999
Described by its founder, Muhammad Yunus, as a "socially conscious capitalist enterprise," the much-lauded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh seems to be one of the Third World's brightest success stories. By viewing poor people as potential entrepreneurs, the bank has helped village people, especially women, to better their lives in small but significant ways. Bornstein, a Canadian journalist based in New York City, provides an episodic, sometimes choppy portrait of Grameen, Yunus and some of the people whose lives have been affected by the bank.
>> More Details | created on: 05/23/2006
Microfinance Handbook: An Institutional and Financial Perspective (Sustainable Banking with the Poor)
By Joanna Ledgerwood, World Bank Publications, 1998
The handbook takes a global perspective, drawing on lessons learned from the experiences of microfinance practitioners, donors, and others throughout the world.
>> More Details | created on: 01/17/2006
Business as Partners in Development: Creating Wealth for Countries, Companies, and Communities
The International Business Leaders Forum, 1996
Published in collaboration with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, this publication is aimed at every level of an organisation, and seeks to stimulate consideration of the new way of doing business. In the context of three billion people rapidly taking their place in market economies, the private sector has become the principal motor of development and a growth-test of economic strength.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Expanding Access for the Urban Poor Through Alternative Methods of Financing Private Ownership
By Mwangi S. Kimenyi, USAID Bur. for Global Programs, Field Support and Research Center for Economic Growth Ofc of Emerging Markets, September, 1994
>> View Article | created on: 02/13/2006
The New World of Microenterprise Finance: Building Healthy Financial Institutions for the Poor
By Maria Otero & Elisabeth Rhyne, ACCION , 1994
The new world of microfinance encourages institutions to achieve larger scale and reach economic self-sufficiency by linking to the formal financial sector. This book explores the major elements underlying this approach to microenterprise finance, and evaluates various methodologies to provide financial services to the poor. The final section is devoted to case studies of Bank Rakyat Indonesia, BancoSol (Bolivia), the Association of Solidarity Groups (Colombia) and the Kenya Rural Enterprise Program.
>> More Details | created on: 03/13/2006