Microfinance Focus, October 20, 2011: Philippines’ microfinance institution ASKI has received a Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) certification from Grameen Foundation. The certification was awarded in recognition of ASKI’s compliance in the basic, advanced, and tracking over time standards in its PPI use.

“ASKI is the first in Southeast Asia and second in Asia to receive the level of Tracking over Time status because they were able to use the PPI data to monitor poverty movement of their clients,” said Cris Lomboy, Asia PPI specialist of Grameen Foundation.

“This level of certification is the most challenging for institutions to accomplish given the time and processes involved,” Lomboy added.

ASKI started using the PPI in 2008.  As of June 2011, it has already collected PPI scores from 160,993 clients. The PPI rollout among ASKI clients measure the poverty outreach of the organization and track changes on client’s poverty status over time.

Martin Jose I. Gonzalez, volunteer from Bankers Without Borders and senior associate at the Boston Consulting Group conducted the on-site evaluation on July 18-21, 2011and served as the certifier for ASKI. The review covered intent, data collection, training, processing and reporting.

According to the report, the strengths of ASKI include the management commitment to achieving ASKI’s social goals, especially when lending could be more commercially viable. “They ensure they cater to women below the poverty level and create programs and products that make a difference in improving their position in the PPI.”

The robust data collection process was also mentioned as one of its strengths. “Critical to the successful rollout of the PPI tool in ASKI is the decision to embed the process in an existing, critical business transaction (the loan evaluation process), allowing them to collect regular data from 100% of their clients. This allows them to do data collection and validation for all clients,” the report said.

The information-driven decision is also another strength cited. “ASKI has put into place new processes and programs that emerged from the use of the PPI. The collection disbursement points are one such innovation, where upon realizing the residences of those below the poverty line are far from the branches, they established satellite offices to allow women to make shorter commutes to avail of ASKI's products.”

ASKI has recently been awarded as the most outstanding non-government organization (NGO) at the national level and the most outstanding NGO for Luzon during the 6th SIPAG Awards sponsored by the National Livelihood Development Corporation (NLDC). ASKI has decided to donate the cash prize to victims of typhoons Nesat and Nalgae

As of September 2011, ASKI has a total loan portfolio of P 890, 615, 841.42 (Philippine peso) to 86,403 clients. At present, ASKI has six business units, these are the ASKI microfinance, ASKI mutually benefit association, ASKI foundation, ASKI marketing cooperative, ASKI skills and knowledge institute and the ASKI Global Ltd. based in Singapore.