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Book: Creating a World Without Poverty
December, 31 2007
United States - Grameen Foundation board member and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus outlines his vision for a new business model that combines the power of free markets with the quest for a more humane world—and tells the inspiring stories of companies that are doing this work today
...
India: FINO smart card to drive remittance in rural areas
December, 26 2007
Mumbai, India - Financial Information Network & Operations Ltd. (FINO) a company promoted by many banks and financial institutions, has introduced a smart card based remittance service in India. This service will allow a person in rural areas to receive money.
...
India: SKS Microfinance launches operations in Kerala
December, 22 2007
Kochi, India - Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS) Microfinance Private Limited, a new generation microfinance company, has launched its operations in Kerala with the aim of targetting 7,000 poor households with income-generating loans during the fiscal
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Citi sees microfinance growth even in downturn
December, 21 2007
London, United Kingdom - Microfinance services for the world's very poor will likely continue to grow despite any global downturn, Citigroup says, but said the sector must diversify beyond small loans to saving and insurance schemes
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Report: The World's Top 50 Microfinance Institutions
December, 20 2007
United States - Microfinance has become a buzzword of the decade, raising the provocative notion that even philanthropy aimed at alleviating poverty can be profitable. Instead of merely writing a check (then writing it off), why not make a tidy profit from a short-term, high-interest loan, most for under $200, so that a Mexican seamstress may buy a new sewing machine? Billionaires, global leaders and Nobel Prize recipients are hailing these direct loans to uncollateralized would-be entrepreneurs as a way to lift them out of poverty while creating self-sustaining businesses.
Report includes a ranking and four related articles (Microfinance Fever, Profit and Poverty, Changing Microfinance Funding, Let Me In
...
Report: Microfinance: An emerging investment opportunity
December, 19 2007
New York, United States - Deutsche Bank today announced the results of an in-depth study that examines the attractiveness of microfinance for private sector investors. Dr. Norbert Walter, Chief Economist at Deutsche Bank
presented the key findings at a luncheon in New York
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Microfinance, subsidies and dynamic incentives
December, 18 2007
Florida, USA - This paper studies the interaction between subsidised microfinance lending and private, profit oriented lending. The authors build a two period model of a credit market with a monopolistic moneylender and a subsidized microfinance institution (MFI). They apply their model to explain why offering subsidized loans to agents who are poor due to previous project failure does not necessarily lead to moral hazard. Agents’ incentives to work hard and save will not always be distorted.
...
Citigroup to Sell CDO Pooling Bosnian, Tajik Microfinance Loans
December, 17 2007
London, United Kingdom - Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S.bank by assets, plans to sell a $165 million collateralized debt obligation backed by microfinance loans to entrepreneurs in 13 countries including Bosnia, Tajikistan, Mexico and El Salvador. The lender will also invest in the lowest-ranking, or equity, portion of the CDO along with International Finance Corp., a unit of the World Bank, and KfW Group, the German finance agency, according to Fitch Ratings
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Bangladesh: Loan sharks thrive on NGO inaction
December, 14 2007
Patuakhali, Bangladesh - Small entrepreneurs affected by Cyclone Sidr are now at the mercy of loan sharks, also known locally as 'mahajans', as the NGOs in the district stopped disbursing fresh loans
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Kenya: Equity Bank goes regional
December, 14 2007
Nairobi, Kenya - Kenya's fastest growing bank is set to expand its operations to Eastern Africa come next year by opening branches in Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda
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Yunus Blasts Compartamos
December, 13 2007
Mexico - The Nobel Prize-winning microfinance pioneer refuses to mention the words "Compartamos" and "microfinance" in the same breath
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The Ugly Side of Microlending; How big Mexican banks profit as many poor borrowers get trapped in a maze of debt
December, 13 2007
Mexico - In a gleaming office tower in Mexico City secured with retinal scanners, bulletproof glass, and armed guards, dozens of workers in white lab coats dart around a large operations center monitoring long rows of computers. Along one wall, 54 enormous screens flicker dizzyingly with numbers, graphs, and fever charts: a relentless stream of data. You'd think the urgent mission involved tracking the trajectory of a spacecraft or the workings of a national power grid, not tiny amounts of cash and credit for Mexico's working poor
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Kenya: Sh1b Women's Fund Launched
December, 13 2007
Nairobi, Kenya - The Government has launched the Sh1 billion Women Enterprise Development Fund and spelt out its regulatory measures
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South Sudan launches microfinance development facility
December, 11 2007
Sudan - The availability of business funding in Southern Sudan have been boosted with the launch of the Microfinance Development Facility by the Bank of Southern Sudan (BoSS) on Monday December 10, 2007 in Juba. It plans to award a total of US$1,000,000 to microfinance providers in the first quarter of 2008
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A businesslike approach to charity
December, 10 2007
London, United Kingdom - The application of business principles to philanthropy is what many say defines this new generation of philanthropists
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Uganda: Microfinance Muddle
December, 09 2007
Kampala, Uganda - Microfinance institutions have been operating in Uganda since the early 1990s but never has there been a loud outcry by the public against the behaviour of these institutions as it is now
...
International Private Fund Provides First Credit in AZN
December, 08 2007
Baku, Azerbaijan - On 7 December the Micro Finance Bank of Azerbaijan (MFBA) received a AZN 4.2m loan from the SNS Institutional Microfinance Fund, the Bank reported. This is the first loan from an international private-sector financial institution denominated in Azerbaijan’s local currency, the Manat. As such it marks another historic step in the development of capital markets both for MFBA and Azerbaijan. The funding will be used by MFBA for on-lending to Azeri small business.
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Ghana: Consumer Protection Campaign Introduced
December, 06 2007
Ghana - The Ghana Microfinance Institutions (GHAMFIN) and Speed Ghana have launched a consumer education and protection (CEP) campaign for clients and institutions in the micro-finance sub-sector in the country
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Gates gives $34 mln grant for insurance for poor
December, 06 2007
Geneva, Switzerland - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing a $34 million grant that should help at least 25 million poor people have access to insurance coverage by 2012, the International Labour Organisation said on Thursday
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Bangladesh cyclone survivors loans frozen: officials
December, 05 2007
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Survivors of Bangladesh's cyclone will not have to keep up repayments on microfinance loans after the country's army chief asked lenders to suspend the debts, the army said Wednesday.
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No silver bullets? The online funding revolution and micro-finance sector
December, 05 2007
Nairobi, Kenya - When Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, which revolutionised credit for the poor, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, micro-finance became a household concept. Now, online lending sites such as Kiva and NamasteDirect, give everyone a chance to help fight global poverty and, in the words of one new investor, "teach people how to take a small investment, grow their business and eventually become self-sufficient".
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IBM and CARE Partner to Advance Microfinance in Africa
December, 04 2007
Armonk, Unites States - IBM and CARE today announced plans to enable microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sub-Saharan Africa to dramatically lower the costs of providing financial services to previously unbanked populations in the region
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Nigeria: 450 Microfinance Banks Set to Emerge
December, 04 2007
Lagos, Nigeria - By January 1, 2008, only 450 out of a total 700 community banks across the country would operate as Microfinance Banks to cater for the needs of the micro, small and medium-scale enterprises, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said yesterday
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StanChart group in Asian loan deal
December, 03 2007
London, United Kingdom - A consortium led by Standard Chartered of the UK yesterday signed a $55m loan to BRAC, Bangladesh's largest microfinance institution - measured by borrowers - underscoring keen interest from commercial banks in the burgeoning industry that makes small loans to the poor
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