Results 1 - 15 of 19
- Jul, 2011In a post on the FAI blog, Timothy Ogden asked whether the standard microcredit model depends on growth. Since growth has been a central focus following several recent crises, this is a very worthwhile question. Here, we will look a little bit at what...
- May, 2011How can we define responsible financial performance? This is part three of a four-part series covering our current state of knowledge about the relationship between key financial and social performance indicators, produced as a prelude to the...
- May, 2011How can we define responsible financial performance? This is part two of a four-part series covering our current state of knowledge about the relationship between key financial and social performance indicators, produced as a prelude to the...
- Apr, 2011In a comment to our post on cost and profitability in microfinance, John DeWit from SEF – ZAF raised the point that some MFIs may “charge high rates but...not make high returns because of large loan write-offs.”This presents a perfect opportunity to look...
- Mar, 2011Risk is at the heart of financial intermediation, and microfinance is no exception. Since 2008, considerable attention has been focused on the effects of the financial crisis on microfinance institutions (MFIs). However, most discussions on the...
- Mar, 2011Recent commentary on microfinance has focused on the idea that there is a big problem with excess commercialization driven by greedy for-profit microcredit lenders. Perceptions of uncontrolled growth and excessive interest charged to vulnerable low...
- Jan, 2011In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Muhammad Yunus proposed government regulation to enforce an interest rate cap of 10 - 15 percentage points over cost of funds for microfinance institutions. The intention of this cap is to prevent profit-...
- Jan, 2011The following figures are updated versions of those published in “Analyzing Microcredit Interest Rates, A Review of the Methodology Proposed by Mohamed Yunus”, MIX Data Brief, No. 4.All updated figures below are almost identical to the ones...
- Dec 31, 2009This brief report gives a great overview of MFI performance for calendar year 2008 and shows the begining of the impact of the global economic slowdown on the microfinance sector throughout the developing world. The report includes outreach, efficiency...
- Dec 1, 2009As the world watched the financial crisis and ensuing economic slowdown unfold in developed economies in late 2008, observers of microfinance braced themselves for the fallout on microfinance institutions, some of which began to appear by the end of 2008...
- Sep 1, 2008To be sustainable businesses, microfinance institutions (MFIs) must cover all expenses with their own revenues. If revenues are more than expenses, the MFI is sustainable and can keep operating without the need for subsidies; if revenues are less than...
- Jun 30, 2009MIX Data Brief No. 2: This paper explores the question of whether deposit mobilizing MFIs are really serving small depositors, and proposes a new indicator for depth of outreach of MFIs' deposit mobilizing instruments.Two primary arguments can be made...
- May 1, 2009Microfinance practitioners have often sought a single, easy-to-understand indicator for evaluating the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs). To date, the most commonly used indicator has been financial self-sufficiency (FSS). However, FSS is...
- May 1, 2009In the last ten years, conventional wisdom has held that microfinance as an asset class enjoys a striking lack of correlation with trends in the global economy. The informality of most of the microbusinesses feeding into the microfinance industry was...
- May 1, 2009As the inflation rate in Pakistan crosses 25 percent per annum — the highest in almost three decades — there is justifiable concern that the Pakistani citizen, particularly the poor, will suffer the most and will bear the severest brunt of this economic...
