According to a company press release on Business Wire India, Cranes Software International, a developer of statistical analysis and simulation products, has signed an agreement with L&T Finance, the financial division of Larsen & Toubro,an Indian conglomerate, to implement a microfinance lending solution. Continue Reading »

Fitch has assigned a long term issuer default rating of B minus with a stable outlook to Uzbekistan-based Microcreditbank (MCB). According to a Morningstar press release, MCB’s long- and short-term ratings are underpinned by the Uzbekistan government’s 83 percent stake in the bank.  The rating reflects Fitch’s belief in the likelihood of government support should the bank come under stress, due to the bank’s important social function of providing microloans as well as the dominance of state resources in MCB’s funding structure.   The rating is constrained by the Uzbekistan government’s sovereign risk profile. Continue Reading »

In its latest issue Microfinance Insights explores how industry stakeholders have been affected by the global liquidity crisis. While microloan clients have been squeezed by the crisis and MFIs have struggled to work with less liquidity, equity investors continue to show interest in investing in large microfinance institutions, confident they will weather the crisis. In this issue the magazine surveys 120 MFIs and 40 investors from around the world. Continue Reading »

Equitas Micro Finance India announced it has completed a microloan backed rated securitization worth USD 3.0m.  According to a press release in the Economic Times, the pass-through certificates are rated by CRISIL and backed by microloan receivables originated by Equitas.  CRISIL is an Indian rating company and a division of Standard and Poor’s. The Series A1 certificates are rated AA(so) and the Series A2 certificates are rated BBB(so).  IFMR, the Institute for Financial Management and Research in India, structured and arranged the transaction.  The COO of Equitas, S. Baskar, commented “traditionally MFIs in India have had to access only banks for debt raising, placing limitations.  This transaction would open a new window to the industry to raise debt from those banks which do not generally participating (sic) in funding to MFIs”.  Continue Reading »