The financial regulator of Colombia, Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, has reported that six local and foreign firms are applying to offer banking services in the country, including an unspecified number that would offer microfinance. Continue Reading »

The US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development (AID) have announced a USD 15 million fund to encourage companies to initiate mobile financial services in Haiti. Continue Reading »

Global Partnerships, a US-based microfinance investment firm, held a forum on June 8 in Bellevue, Washington, that covered the organization’s efforts to reduce poverty in Latin America while offering investors a fixed rate of return. Continue Reading »

Pakistan?s Microfinance Credit Information Bureau (MF-CIB) has been launched as a joint venture by the Pakistan Microfinance Network, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Citi Foundation and the State Bank of Pakistan. Continue Reading »

CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), an independent policy and research center housed at the World Bank Group, recently published a technical guide entitled “Performance-Based Agreements: Incorporating Performance-Based Elements into Standard Loan and Grant Agreements”. Continue Reading »

MicroCapital: What is your personal motivation for investing in microfinance?

Rick Beckett: I spent the first 20 years of my career in the private sector. My motivation is really rooted in a couple things: one is I want to live in a world where everybody is treated like they matter, and for me that’s a lot about people having the opportunity to earn a living and provide for their families. We don’t live in that kind of a world. I do the work I do at Global Partnerships and Direct Relief and elsewhere because I’m interested in how we can use market solutions to advance the common good. I’m intrigued by the opportunity to change investment markets to incorporate more social motivations. I’m intrigued by the evolution of enterprises and products to incorporate more of the common good, both in terms of global poverty and global health issues as well as environmental issues. So it’s a combination of wanting to see a different world and intrigue in how the market mechanisms are evolving to advance that. So it’s a pretty interesting place to be in right now.

MC: You have said previously that “All microfinance is not created equal.” How you make such distinctions?

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Thank you to the Microinsurance Network for permission to reprint its recent interview with Dirk Reinhard, instigator of the International Microinsurance Conferences:

In light of the upcoming 6th International Microinsurance Conference taking place between 9-11 November in Manila, Philippines, Dirk Reinhard, Vice Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation and member of the Executive Committee of the Microinsurance Network, answers a few questions regarding the past, present and future of this pioneering conference.

Microinsurance Network: How did the first International Microinsurance Conference come about in Munich? What were the aims of this conference and who were behind it?

Dirk Reinhard: Munich Re – which founded the Munich Re Foundation in April 2005 – concerns itself with the great challenges facing the world today – population growth, globalisation, diminishing resources, environmental pollution and climate change. Continue Reading »

As world leaders haggle over emissions cuts and financial obligations to promote technology transfer to developing nations, a vanguard of microfinance institutions (MFIs) have silently financed purchases of clean energy technologies such as solar panels, biogas digesters, micro hydro dams and clean energy cook stoves in some of the poorest regions of the world. The prevalence of small-scale clean technologies could contribute to the displacement of rapidly expanding coal powered electricity grids to rural areas. Furthermore, it could replace dirty fuels – firewood, animal dung and charcoal – which have significant consequences for human health. Continue Reading »

The Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) is the international development bank of the Netherlands. FMO uses loans, mezzanine financing and equity investments to invest in financial institutions and other companies in developing countries. With an investment portfolio of USD 6.5 billion, FMO is one of the world’s largest bilateral private sector development banks. FMO’s mission is to create flourishing enterprises that can serve as engines of sustainable growth in their countries. Continue Reading »

A recent article featured on the Wall Street Journal website entitled “Microfinance’s Midlife Crisis” examines the underpinnings of the debate in the microfinance industry about profit versus purpose. Continue Reading »

PlaNet Finance Group is an international organization with the mission of alleviating poverty through the development of microfinance. The group consists of a non-governmental organization (NGO) called PlaNet Finance, which has historically been at the heart of the group and offers advisory and training services, as well as a set of social businesses. Among these, Planet Rating is a microfinance rating agency, PlaNIS is specialized in the structuring and management of microfinance funds, MicroCred is a microfinance holding company investing in greenfield microfinance banks and non-banking financial institutions, PlaNet Guarantee provides microinsurance and FinanCités is a venture capital company that invests in very small enterprises in French urban areas. Continue Reading »

Lok Capital LLC, a venture fund focused on the microfinance sector in India, recently announced an equity investment in RuralShores Business Services Private Limited, which provides outsourced data entry services to businesses within India and abroad. Continue Reading »

ES Global, a consulting firm that focuses on social investing and micro- and small enterprise development, has created a wiki for post-crisis management support to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Haiti. Continue Reading »

Grameen Financial Services Private Limited, an Indian microfinance institution also known as Grameen Koota, has raised INR 20 crore (USD 4.27 million) from a sale of secured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures (NCDs) to MicroVest I LP, a US-based private equity fund. Continue Reading »

Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reports that the local microfinance interbank money market has collapsed due to the very liquidity problems it was intended to address. Continue Reading »

Jeff Raderstrong, founder of Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell, which raises money for international microlending from the US state of Iowa, recently published an article titled “2009: The Year Microfinance Died.” Continue Reading »

In a recent column in US daily The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof argued that, “What we need is a savings revolution. Right now, the world’s poor almost never have access to a bank account. Cash sits around and gets spent — and, frankly, often spent badly…. Research suggests that the world’s poorest families (typically the men in those families) spend about 20 percent of their incomes on a combination of alcohol, cigarettes, prostitution, soft drinks and extravagant festivals.” Continue Reading »

In recognition of his many years of work to assist poor people, Fazle Hasan Abed, the Founder and Chairperson of international microfinance institution BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), is to be knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on an undisclosed date. Continue Reading »