Recent Blogs
Virtual Conference Day 2: Getting Past the Same Old Conversation
As concerns grow in the microfinance community about delinquency crises, responsible finance, client over indebtedness, and social performance management, it becomes increasingly important for MFIs to have solid systems in place to manage their business and understand clients.
Virtual Conference Day 1: Capacity Building
During our recent workshop series, a consistent theme across all regions was the notion that adoption and usage of back end systems could be done more successfully and for less money if (a) MFIs had better internal skills to work with technology and (b) if vendors gained a more intimate knowledge of MFI operations and requirements. Would capacity building at MFIs and vendors help alleviate technology headaches at MFIs?
Ethiopia Graduation Pilot Underway
The 500 participants in this graduation pilot have been selected in 10 communities that are particularly poor, ecologically diverse (both dry and dry-wet zones) and relatively accessible for REST staff.
Virtual Conference: Getting Past the Technology Hurdles at MFIs
Over the past several months, CGAP and Grameen Foundation, with support from the MasterCard Foundation and the EU/ACP Microfinance Programme, hosted a series of four workshops to discuss the back office challenges at MFIs. Workshops took place in Washington, DC, Kenya, India, and Peru in an attempt to understand the issues at both a global and regional level.
CGAP and Grameen Announce Virtual Conference, July 7-8
Getting past the technology hurdles at MFIs: Why do MFIs struggle with technology and what can MFIs, donors, investors, software vendors and others do to improve the situation? Join us for a virtual conference to discuss these issues (7-8 July 2010).
Truth in Advertising
How far do microfinance funds expect their investments to go in changing lives? Are microfinance funds looking for specific changes in the lives of poor people or increased access to finance in a responsible way? And can we tell from the information they provide?
FATF Puts Financial Inclusion on its Agenda
In early June, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G20 called on international standard- setting bodies to consider how they can further contribute to encouraging financial inclusion, consistent with their respective mandates. One key standard-setter is well on its way to heeding the G20’s call.
Interview with Greg Reeve from Vodafone
Greg Reeve is the Head of Mobile Payment Solutions at Vodafone.
Microfinance Policy Forum for the Arab World
The Forum is a unique opportunity for officials from central banks and government ministries from across the Arab world to exchange experiences and knowledge with peers.
G20 Endorses Nine Principles for Innovative Financial Inclusion
The G20 Leadership Summit in Toronto this past weekend highlighted the importance of the work being done by the G20’s Financial Inclusion Experts Group (FIEG).
What's the Impact of Loan Size in Microfinance?
People tend to see loan size as a rough proxy of client poverty, which appears to be more or less true as long as you say the word “rough” very emphatically.
Haiti’s Graduation Pilot Final Evaluation,Promising Results
At the pilot stage, the program has demonstrated significant positive impact upon the lives of its members with 97% per cent of the 150 women that participated “graduating” out of the program.
Letter to the Editor
A CGAP paper clearly acknowledges that randomized studies by Prof. Duflo and others have raised fundamental questions about the claim that microcredit raises incomes and consumption, lifting poor people out of poverty.
West Africa Switches on Mobile Money: Headlines for June 22, 2010
We’ve been saying for awhile that mobile money will be less compelling in places where good alternatives to cash already exist, for example, in developed markets such as North America. Despite that, the folks who look after how payments get cleared has opened a door for mobile.
Dakar Dispatch: Mobile Money and Financial Inclusion
The regulatory questions around branchless banking are often not black and white, but usually gray. What is quite clear, however, is that the private sector is raring to go in many Francophone African markets, and policymakers need to be informed now more than ever on the appropriate ways to respond.
India, Microfinance, and Technology
Back office management is a source of such stress for many MFIs that it’s exciting to see MFIs trying new and innovative ways of addressing these issues. Sahayata’s back office strategy includes not only technology, but also people and processes.
The Other Side of the Interest Rate Argument
High interest rates is not a universal problem. In fact, China is facing the opposite issue: interest rates charged by MFIs are too low.
CGAP Releases Pricing Tool for Mobile Banking for the Unbanked
A few weeks ago, CGAP released a study comparing the prices of 16 branchless banking pioneers and 10 traditional banks across eight use cases. We found that the average monthly cost of using a branchless banking service is $3.90 (PPP adjusted) compared with US$4.80 when using a traditional bank. The conclusion: branchless banking is cheaper than traditional banking, but the gap is not as wide as some may think.
My Mobile, My Neighbor and $20: A Dispatch from the U.S.
For all the talk about financial services over mobile technology and our aspirations for a cashless society, it is striking to me how far the economies in the U.S. and Europe still have to go.