MICROCAPITAL STORY: President of Women’s World Banking (WWB) Visits Jordanian Microfinance Market Where Partner, Microfund for Women (MFW), Operates

Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President of Women’s World Banking (WWB), a New York-based institution supporting over 55 microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks in 43 countries, recently visited Jordan, as reported by the Jordan Times in an interview on March 10th. WWB’s partner in Jordan is Microfund for Women (MFW), which reported 2007 total assets of USD 13.9 million and a loan portfolio of USD 13.2 million to the microfinance information clearinghouse, the MIX Market. President Iskenderian was en route to Dubai, but visited Hai Nazzal Centre, located in a suburb of Amman with the same name, where she observed Jordanian microfinance operations.

Iskenderian remarked that “The Jordanian market is broad but very competitive with many players involved in it.” Reflecting that statement, six Jordanian MFIs in the Levantine nation of population 5.6 million with annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of four percent, reported a combined loan portfolio of USD 93.5 million to the MIX Market and together serve over 100,600 clients. The recent USD 13 million grant from Spain’s Agency for Cooperation and Development (AECID) and the Jordanian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation’s (MOP) own internal grant of JD 2.5 million (USD 3.6 million), are aimed at boosting the capabilities of Jordanian MFIs. Both stories were posted by MicroCapital: (1, 2).

The non-bank financial institution MFW, whose 30,900 borrowers are 96 percent women, represents WWB’s mission of expanding “economic assets, participation, and power of low-income women entrepreneurs.” Operating out of 10 locations in northwest Jordan, Amman-based MFW gives loans to entrepreneurial women in all stages of their commercial projects, and received an “A minus” rating from Planet Rating, a microfinance rating agency, in July 2007. The institution reported return on assets (ROA) of 5.87 percent in 2006 and a 2007 debt to equity ratio of 100.7 percent.