by Melissa Duscha -

PAPER WRAP-UP: Accelerating Rural Financing Process by Banks in India, Need for Creating Enabling Environment

Written by Dr. Amrit Patel, consultant to the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Dr. Gopal Kalkoti, economic consultant for the All India Association of Educational Research (AIAER),  this nine-page study of the Indian rural microfinance sector was released in November 2007. Based on government surveys conducted over the past two decades, the publication evaluates the current state of rural finance in India and suggests improvement measures. Available at: http://microfinancegateway.org/content/article/detail/39605/

The two major factors affecting the success of Rural Finance Institutions (RFIs) are the lack of efficient, low-cost operational solutions and India’s overall weak agricultural infrastructure.

by Mary Fu -

PAPER WRAP-UP: 2007 Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX) Global 100: Rankings of Microfinance Institutions

Published by Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX), 32 pages, available for viewing here.

MIX recently surveyed a global sample of 820 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that had a combined loan portfolio of USD 24 billion with over 53 million borrowers and 64 million savers. In addition to ranking MFIs along single categories (outreach, scale, profitability, efficiency, productivity, and portfolio quality), the 2007 edition of the report also utilizes new composite rankings to highlight the 100 top-performing MFIs that have achieved high outreach and low transaction costs, while maintaining transparency and boosting profitability. The report concludes that leading MFIs broke performance records on all fronts.

by Sophie Kim -

MICROCAPITAL STORY: Forbes’ Special Feature on Private Investment in Microfinance Includes Top 50 Microfinance Institutions

Forbes, a American business and financial news magazine, presented the list of top 50 microfinance institutions (MFIs) of 2007 in its special feature on the private investment in the microfinance industry.

by Elizabeth Nelson -

MICROCAPITAL STORY: Pakistan Trade Association Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) to Offer Microfinance Services

Dr. Khurram Anwar Khawaja, president of Pakistan trade association Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), recently announced that the organization is actively considering introducing micro-credit loans into its repertoire of financial services. Dr. Khawaja stated that the objective of the micro-loans is to reduce unemployment by encouraging entrepreneurship.

by Mary Fu -

PAPER WRAP-UP: Benchmarking Latin American Microfinance 2006: A Report from Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX), by Matthew Gehrke and Renso Martinez

Published by Microfinance Information eXchange, Inc., November 2007. 16 pages, available at http://www.themix.org.

This annual report surveys 228 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Latin America whose loan portfolios total to USD 9.7 billion with over 9 million borrowers. The first part of the report tracks the latest performance trends in the major regional markets, paying special attention to changes in the competitive environment. The latter part of the report details performances of three categories of microfinance institutions: consumer-lenders, microenterprise-focused lenders, and microenterprise-only lenders.

General observations for the major microfinance markets of the region included: “robust” but “lopsided” growth, lower interest rates, increases in average loan balance and average balance per borrower, lower ratios of operating expenses to gross portfolio, higher cost per borrower, declines in loan officer productivity, mild increases in profitability and delinquency, and trends of diversification among the three types of MFIs.

by the MicroCapital Team -

MICROCAPITAL SPECIAL FEATURE: Authors of New Book Offer Op-Ed on Microfinance Public Policy

Bernd Balkenhol of the International Labour Office and Jonathan Morduch of New York University discuss “The bottom line for microfinance”:

“Muhammad Yunus had a small and beautiful idea, an idea that was celebrated globally by the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus showed that poor households in his native Bangladesh could be reliable bank customers, and, with that, he promised a new way to open opportunities for the excluded and to attack entrenched poverty. Small loans, he argued, could nourish the tiny, capital-starved businesses of the poor and create lasting improvements in living conditions. But he had more than an idea: “microfinance” became the foundation of Grameen Bank, a financial institution that today serves over 7 million customers. Other pioneers in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere in Asia have made microfinance a global phenomenon.

by Mary Fu -

MICROCAPITAL STORY: Tameer Microfinance Bank (TMFB) to Offer Customers Access to One-Link ATMs Throughout Pakistan

Tameer Microfinance Bank (TMFB), a commercial microfinance bank in Pakistan, has signed an agreement with One-Link, a Pakistani Automated Teller Machine (ATM) company, to enable TMFB customers to use 2,000 Onelink ATMs in 150 cities throughout Pakistan. The agreement was signed by President and CEO of TMFB Nadeem Hussain and CEO of Onelink Khayyam Mahmood Butt on behalf of their respective companies.

by Elizabeth Nelson -

MICROCAPITAL STORY: Study Reveals Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) Has Created 659,000 Jobs Since Inception

The Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) has released a Baseline/Impact Study which it commissioned in order to 1) establish a baseline database of clients, 2) measure the impact of the microfinance program in Afghanistan since its inception and 3) set up a few key socio-economic indicators that microfinance institutions (MFIs) could monitor to track the well-being of their clients. Following its initial release in September, the survey was presented to key stakeholders, including the Afghan Government, the World Bank, MISFA management and key donors and MFI partners.

by Mary Fu -

PAPER WRAP-UP: Microfinance in Northeast Thailand: Who Benefits and How Much?, by Brett E.Coleman

By Brett E. Coleman, published by World Development, Vol. 34, No. 9, September 2006, 27 pages, available by subscription through Science Direct: doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2006.01.006.

This paper examines the results of a survey of two Northeast Thailand “village bank” programs that target the poor, and is an extension of a previous paper written by Coleman in 1999, entitled “The Impact of Group Lending in Northeast Thailand”*. It extends the same methodology employed in the first to include more in-depth analyses on outreach success and differential impact on two types of village bank members. Coleman concludes that the programs surveyed were not reaching the poor as much as the relatively wealthy, and that the estimated impacts on wealthier committee members were significantly more positive than on poorer rank-and-file members.