Archive for the ‘Featured News’ Category

MicrofinanceFocus, July 23, 2009: Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani took over as head of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) on Thursday with a mandate to create a national database of identity details of citizens. The task ahead of Nilekani is to provide a unique indentification card to every citizen of India. This card will contain all details like the name, sex, address, marital status, photo, ... Full story

MicrofinanceFocus, July 23, 2009: BRAC, a non-profit organisation, is leading a $15 million initiative to rebuild war-torn communities in Sierra Leone and Liberiaon on a long-term sustainable strategy, including microfinance, with support from the Soros Economic Development Fund, Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Omidyar Network and Humanity United, said a statement on Wednesday. The two-year pilot program is being funded through a combination of grants and equity. BRAC is also negotiating to raise additional debt capital to finance the loan portfolio. Full story

MicrofinanceFocus, July 22, 2009: The Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD), an affiliate of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), has approved two microfinance projects, one each in Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan worth $15 million, said a statement by the bank. The approval came following the meeting of the board of directors of the ISFD at the IDB headquarters in Jeddah on Tuesday.   The ISFD was established after the Makkah Extraordinary Islamic Summit in 2005. The fund seeks to mobilize resources worth US$ 10 billion to combat poverty in the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) member countries. Following the approval by ISFD, the project in Kyrgyz Republic will get a concessional loan for US$ 5 million to finance micro enterprises through local partners in rural areas. The duration of the loan is 10 years including a grace period of three years. A technical assistance grant of US$ 300,000 shall be provided for the project. Full story

MicrofinanceFocus, July 22, 2009: Craig Newmark, Internet entrepreneur and founder of the classified advertising website Craigslist, announced on Wednesday that he has joined the advisory board of a new microfinance website LendforPeace.org which helps users to make loans to specific entrepreneurs in the West Bank. Full story

By Naagesh Naaraayana Microfinance Focus, July 22, 2009: Manonmani, a housewife with two children, lived for many years in a slum in Tiruchirpalli with acute water shortage. For a family of four, access to water once every four days was too inadequate to survive.  Thanks to Water.org,  she found their local affiliate Gramalaya, a microfinance institution which came to her locality and provided them loans for a new water connection. Full story

By Naagesh Naaraayana MicrofinanceFocus, July 21, 2009: The Reserve Bank of India has urged big IT firms to involve more in the cause of financial inclusion, which is a major challenge before the nation. Speaking to ET at a seminar on financial inclusion organised by consultancy firm Skoch in Mumbai last week, K. C. Chakrabarty, Deputy governor of RBI, said: “The scale of business in financial inclusion is so big that we need participation from big IT companies.” Mr Chakrabarty also said that the RBI will come out with more guidelines for the sector in a month's time. Full story

MF Focus, July 20, 2009: Flexibility in microfinance/micro credit loans will help the sector tide over many new challenges, Grameen Foundation CEO Alex Counts has said in a recent interview to Microfinance Focus. Terming multiple borrowing that is hitting hard the industry's growth in recent years, Counts termed it as a dangerous trend that can be fixed by addressing the issue of under-lending first and secondly, dissuading loan officers from underestimating the risk in order to meet the target. Full story

MF Focus, July 17, 2009: State Bank of Pakistan has extended risk guarantee facility for microfinance banks and institutions with a fund of GBP 10 million received from the UK Department of International Development (DFID) which will be kept as reserve for the purpose, said a circular issued by the bank on Friday. (For a full version of the circular, visit SBP url: www.sbp.org.pk/Guidelines/index2.asp) The bank has also restrained microfinance interest rate by MFIs not to exceed 16% or two percent above the official discount rate of 14% and ameded its guidelines for the Microfinance Credit Guarantee Facility (MCGF) that was introduced in May this year. Full story

By Naagesh Naaraayna MF Focus, July 9, 2009: It's no more the traditional practice of extending small short-term loans to support income-generating activities among under-privileged and isolated populations for Bidar-based Nirantara Foundation. They have decided to trek that extra mile to provide pre-school education to the children of their clients and even lend micro credit ... Full story

In a country with significant sections of unbanked population, financial inclusion through microfinance institutions, self-help groups and a huge rural banking network has figured prominently in the 2009-2010 budget. By Naagesh N. MF Focus, July 6, 2009: The budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday reiterated the UPA government's agenda to empower more rural women and announced its ambitious plans to enrol at least half of them into the network of self-help group (SHG) movement, besides increasing the corpus funding of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh to Rs 500 crore. Reiterating the government's commitment to the Women’s Self Help Group movement which he said is bringing about a profound transformation in rural areas, the government wants to strengthen them by enrolling at least 50% of all rural women in India as members of SHGs over the next five years and link these SHGs to banks, he said, noting that there are over 22 lakh such groups linked with banks now. Full story

MF Focus, July 2, 2009: Grameen Foundation has announced the launch of a suite of mobile phone applications developed with Google and MTN Uganda (MTN) to deliver services and information that were previously not accessible to the poor in Uganda. The SMS-based services are designed to work with basic mobile phones to reach the broadest possible users who can access the services quickly and privately at any time and search relevant content on-demand, the way one can access such information on the Internet. Full story

MF Focus, July 1, 2009: ACCION International, a private, nonprofit organization, has appointed Diana Taylor as its new chair. Taylor, a fomer managing director at Wolfensohn & Co., a New York-based investment banking firm, has also served as superintendent of banks for the State of New York, from 2003 to 2007. Between 1996 and 2003 she held various positions in the New York state government, including CFO of the Long Island Power Authority and deputy secretary to the governor for housing and finance. Prior to her government work, Ms. Taylor was an investment banker at Smith Barney, Lehman Brothers and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette. Full story

By Naagesh, N. Microfinance Focus, July 1, 2009: Small businesses are the ones which attract virtually no second look from the investors but microfinance with the help of websites is reaching micro enterpreneurs in every nook and corner and India is no exception. Taking cue from the American Kiva's Web site (www.kiva.org) where anybody can provide  a loan of $25 to support an entrepreneur in a remote place, keep track of the loan and its progress, Rang De in India has unveiled similar web-based plan to bring together social investors and those at the bottom of the social ladder who have been ignored for long. Full story