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Jun 2013
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Archives:
SIDBI Launches India Microfinance Platform
June, 28 2013
India - Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) today launched India Microfinance Platform, a portal which gives comprehensive information about microfinance players in the country ...
Tanzania: Credit Reference Bureau Opens in Dar es Salaam
June, 27 2013
Tanzania - CREDITINFO International Company has opened a Credit Reference Bureau in the country to complement the government efforts towards creating sound financial infrastructure ...
India: RBI Eases Priority Loan Eligibility Norm for MFIs Onlending
June, 27 2013
New Delhi, India - Bank credit for onlending by Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) will now be eligible for categorization as priority sector lending if at least 70 percent of loans given by MFIs is for income generating activity ...
Africa: European Investment Bank Unveils Sh11b Kitty for SMEs
June, 27 2013
East Africa - The European Investment Bank has unveiled a Sh11.3 billion (Euros 101.5 million) kitty for Small and Medium Sized businesses (SMEs) within East Africa ...
Jamaica's First Crowd-Funding Website Will Support Micro Businesses
June, 27 2013
Kingston, Jamaica - Jamaican micro entrepreneurs will, by July, have access to funding through a global portal being established by the country’s leading microfinance company, JN Small Business Loans Limited (JNSBL). ...
Nigeria: CBN-Funding MFBs To Boost MSMEs Development
June, 26 2013
Abuja, Nigeria - Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are critical to the development of any economy as they possess great potentials for employment generation, improvement of local technology, output diversification, development of indigenous entrepreneurship and forward integration with large-scale industries ...
Advans SA SICAR Announces the Upcoming Creation of Advans Tunisie
June, 24 2013
Tunisia - Advans SA, the international venture capital company specialised in microfinance, announces the upcoming creation of Advans Tunisie, the ninth microfinance institution of the Advans network ...
Myanmar: Crunching the Numbers - What Can Microfinance Achieve?
June, 24 2013
Myanmar - “Microfinance is a platform builder, like education. No one claims that having a school in your village will eliminate poverty, but if you don’t have a school in the village you have less chance of emerging from poverty.” ...
India: Billionaire Indian Heiress Lends to Poor Amid Bank Bid
June, 24 2013
India - Ananyashree Birla, the teenage daughter of Indian billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla, is lending to the poor. Her experience may help her father’s quest for a banking permit. ...
Nigeria: Microfinance Banks Invest N222 Billion in Nigerian Economy - Association
June, 23 2013
Abuja, Nigeria - NAMB held its third Annual General Meeting. The National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB) on Saturday in Abuja said its members have invested more than N222 billion into Nigeria's economy ...
The United States: Moody's Analytics Completes First Microfinance Social Performance Assessment
June, 21 2013
The United States - Moody's Analytics announced today that it has completed its first Social Performance Assessment (SPA) of a microfinance institution, as part of its commitment to develop an independent and globally consistent standard for the microfinance industry. ...
Luxembourg: LuxFLAG Confirms Growth in Assets Labelled
June, 21 2013
Luxembourg - LuxFLAG, the fund labelling agency based in Luxembourg, says its Microfinance and Environment labels respectively have grown to cover assets of £3.95bn and $907m as of 20 June. ...
Annie Lowrey: Ending Poverty by Giving the Poor Money
June, 21 2013
Global - Can you alleviate poverty by just giving money to the poor? It seems like a tautology, sure. But for development experts, it is a subject of serious research ...
Savings Groups and Financial Inclusion
June, 19 2013
Global - Flexibility, transparency, and commitment to saving keep member-run groups relevant, says Paul Rippe ...
Zimbabwe Financial Inclusion Remains Low
June, 19 2013
Zimbabwe - Not more than two in every 10 Zimbabweans employed by micro, small and medium enterprises conducts business through the formal banking system as the level of financial inclusion remains low, a government commissioned report has shown ...
Finance and Poverty: Evidence from India
June, 17 2013
India - The relationship between finance, inequality and poverty is a controversial one. While some observers attribute not only the crisis but also rising inequality in many Western countries to the rise of the financial system, others see an important role of the financial sector on the poverty alleviation agenda. ...
Lender Targets Developing Nations’ Top Entrepreneurs
June, 17 2013
Global - What would happen if business owners in developing countries who lacked access to commercial lending were offered a more generous helping hand – offering credit that exceeded the typical $5,000 microloan ...
Creation Investments Social Ventures Fund II Announces an Oversubscribed Final Fund Closing of $75 Million
June, 15 2013
United States - Creation Investments Social Ventures Fund II, a global private equity fund focused on financial services and microfinance, completed its final closing on May 31, 2013 with total committed capital of $75 million USD. ...
Recognition for Financial Innovations That Help Transform Lives
June, 14 2013
United Kingdom - What the awards demonstrate, however, is that financial institutions can act responsibly. And if they use their loans and investment capital in the right way, they can pursue social and environmental goals while also generating a profit. ...
UK: How Can Business Support Sustainable Financing for Smallholder Farmers?
June, 14 2013
UK - When it comes to access to finance, especially in the developing world, small producers are typically left staring into a void. Without significant collateral, mainstream banks are reluctant to lend. Informal lenders, meanwhile, typically charge crippling interest rates. ...
Microfinance in Africa: Opportunities for Social Entrepreneurs
June, 14 2013
Africa - It is undeniable that there is a large untapped microfinance market in Africa today, although constraints remain numerous. Africa, with an average loan size estimated in 2011 at USD 475, is well above the average portfolio yield of the Symbiotics worldwide microfinance index. ...
Swaziland: 54% Has No Access to Financial Products
June, 13 2013
Swaziland - This was revealed by Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole yesterday when launching the MAP (Making Access Possible) project, a tool to facilitate the development of the financial inclusion strategy for Swaziland ...
A New Wave of E-Money in Latin America
June, 11 2013
Latin America - Because banking penetration, though high, is focused in middle and upper urban class, the prospect of reaching many poorer, unbanked citizens away from large towns remains the promise of this alternative infrastructure beyond the banking system. ...
Global Movement into the Vulnerable Class, and What it Means for Financial Inclusion
June, 11 2013
Global - Over the course of this decade, the bottom two quintiles in many of the world’s most populous countries will see movement into and even beyond the “vulnerable class”, defined as having an income of $4 to $10 per day ...
India: Funding - Angels, Peers and Banks Get Behind SMEs
June, 11 2013
India - A key issue in India is that most SMEs and micro-businesses have little or no contact with banks – the vast majority work in the informal sector ...
Full Inclusion in South Africa’s Financial Services Yet to be Achieved: World Bank
June, 11 2013
South Africa - Access to financial services for individuals and small enterprises in South Africa has expanded in recent years but there is still no full inclusion, a manager told CNBC Africa on Thursday ...
United Kingdom: Five Takeaways - The G8 and Social Impact Investing
June, 09 2013
United Kingdom - The meeting can justifiably claim to have primed the pump for the next few years of work on impact investing. ...
Myanmar: IFC Report Finds Huge Unmet Demand for Microcredit
June, 08 2013
Myanmar - Demand for microcredit is about US$1 billion a year, about four times the amount available, according to a study by the International Finance Corporation that highlighted the need to build up the sector ...
Opportunity International Announces Two Grants Totaling $19.2 Million from the Caterpillar Foundation
June, 06 2013
Global - Opportunity International today announced that the Caterpillar Foundation made two recent commitments to help provide financial products and services to 16.7 million people in countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America through 2017. ...
Bank of Ghana Directs MFIs to Use Credit Referencing
June, 04 2013
Ghana - The Bank of Ghana (BOG) has instructed all Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) in the country to submit data and other information on their borrowing parties to the credit reference bureaus in the country to allow for easy tracking and assessment of credit-worthiness of borrowers ...
A National Experiment: Sharia-Compliant Finance in Sudan
June, 03 2013
Sudan - In many countries with large numbers of poor Muslims, Sharia-compliant microfinance is one among many interventions designed to bring citizens into the financial mainstream ...
Pakistan: FINCA Becomes Majority Shareholder in KMBL
June, 01 2013
Pakistan - Kashf Microfinance Bank Limited on Friday announced an equity injection of Rs 824.7 million by FINCA Microfinance Cooperatief U.A. (Netherlands).With this transaction, FINCA becomes the majority shareholder in KMBL, acquiring 82.8 per cent of the shares ...
India: RBI Allows 12% Margin Cap for Large MFIs
June, 01 2013
India - The Reserve Bank of India today decided to allow margin cap of 12 per cent for large microfinance institutions (MFIs) up to March 31, 2014. ...

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