Microfinance Focus April 26, 2011: Consultative Group to Assist the Poor CGAP, an independent policy and research center advancing financial access to the world’s poor, recently announced the release of its working draft titled, Guide to Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance. The draft Guide is open for public comments until May 15, 2011.

The Guide mainly caters to financial regulators and supervisors, but the national or subnational authorities, the service providers and other local stakeholders, as well as staff of international agencies may also form part of its readership.

The Guide to Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance involves the important developments since 2003 and its implications on regulation and supervision. This includes an expanded treatment of many topics as well as exploration of several new topics not addressed in the first edition, comprising of chapters on consumer protection in microfinance, regulating the use of branchless banking to serve the poor, and microfinance providers in microinsurance.

The Guide addresses the regulatory and supervisory issues that are specifically and distinctly relevant to formal financial services for poor and low-income people. In some countries, state institutions serve many such customers, but their regulatory and supervisory treatment tends either to parallel that of nonstate actors or to be too diverse to be captured easily in general terms.

To know more about the Guide click