Archive for November, 2009

By, Daniel Rozas, Microfinance Consultant By most standards, microfinance is a young sector, and in many countries it can be said to still be in its infancy.   Yet its continuing spectacular growth, especially in India, should give one pause – every time promoters celebrate another multi-million-client threshold, I wonder – how many more such thresholds are left?  How do we know when we’ve arrived? This is not ... Full story

By Jerome Peloquin In recent issues of this magazine, We have been an outspoken critic of what has been called:  Commercial Microfinance.  That is, an MFI operating without transparent loan or operating policies and having no BDS component, essential in an installment lending operation without a visible social development component.  Our attention has been focused upon those MFI’s that, in our opinion, have essentially abandoned ... Full story

By Naagesh Naaraayana | Microfinance Focus | Bangalore The Indian government is likely to introduce a revised version of the much-awaited Micro-Finance Regulation Bill, 2009 in the winter session of parliament. While the passage of it will take few months, it is bound to trigger debate and discussions. Essentially, the passage of the Bill would result in the regulation of micro-finance organizations not being regulated by any ... Full story

By Peter Burgess , New York Bureau Chief –Microfinance Focus The missing middle is in the conversation again ... maybe because the microfinance industry is heading towards the SME segment of the market that needs financial services and is not getting services ... but maybe simply because MFIs think that bigger loans will earn them more profit and improve their financial performance. What is the missing middle? ... Full story

By Bruce Meraviglia , Technology & Marketing Editor Unfortunately for most small businesses in the developing world, the levels of venture capital that are available exceed what they can either qualify to receive, or effectively use if it were provided to them; in a growing business, oftentimes too much success (or, in this case, venture capital) can be as deadly as too little success. This, then, ... Full story

By Jerome Peloquin The Missing Middle describes to the lack of funding for small to medium sized enterprise, (SME) who have progressed to the limits of MFI lending.   (around 1,500 USD).  It is the absence of funding options for small growing businesses at the bottom of the financial services pyramid.  Traditional venture capital firms are interested in much larger investment of ten to twenty million dollars ... Full story

By Jerome Peloquin , Managing  Editor –US What is the difference between sales and marketing?   If you are in sales, can you be a marketing rep?  Well, not to be too equivocal: yes and no.   A definition of Marketing:  It is the management and administration of the four “P’s” (Price, Place, Product, & Promotion).  Marketing provides the answers to these four questions:  (1) How much ... Full story

By Bruce Meraviglia, Technology & Marketing Editor The 18th Century was considered the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in which new forms of mechanical devices and machines were introduced to improve productivity, lower cost, and allow for the manufacture of products that otherwise were not practical to produce.  In the 20th Century, we witnessed the beginning of the Information Revolution, the revolution which, more than ... Full story

By Naagesh N.  | Managing Editor – India The microfinance sector has become more vibrant and dynamic as never before. True, it took a leap of imagination for Mohammad Yunus  to create a bank that lends to the poor without any collateral or credit histories. His Grameen model of microfinance has had a transformatory impact not only on the lives of millions of poor and unbanked ... Full story

By Bruce Meraviglia, Technology & Marketing Editor, Microfinance Focus In the early 1990’s, Robert Kaplan, a PhD-level professor of accounting at Harvard University, wrote a series of papers on how business should (could) consider the value of IT.  His principal position was that traditional accounting standards had no valid methodology for quantifying the value of IT in terms of its benefits to the organization (beyond the ... Full story