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 bu