Blue Financial Services (BFS), a South African microfinance institution (MFI), and Intercontinental Bank Plc, Nigeria’s largest commercial and retail bank by assets, are collaborating to launch a Nigerian microfinance bank capitalized at NGN 3 billion (USD 25.9 million), the largest such institution in the country.
In the third century B.C., a military leader known as Ashoka the Great traversed the Indian subcontinent with his armies, determined to unify the region. Subsequently horrified at the bloodshed that was involved, Ashoka renounced violence, embraced tolerance, and embarked on a campaign to spread development and social welfare throughout his empire. More than two millennia later, a U.S.-based non-profit organization emerged, bearing his name, to face the modern challenge of raising similar visionaries with sufficient means to achieve their visions.
Ashoka has since grown to become an association of 1,800 “social entrepreneurs” across 60 countries. Founded in 1980, it grants three-year stipends to individuals with ideas for innovative and sustainable ventures that have the potential to effect social change. These individuals become life-long Ashoka Fellows. Through the course of their projects, Fellows are periodically surveyed on the impact of their activities. They are also plugged into a global network of Fellows, collaborating with one other and contributing to an infrastructure of access to capital, academia, and business partnerships. In the end, Ashoka’s goal is the proliferation of a “citizen sector,” a segment of society that is distinct from the governmental and corporate sectors and is motivated to mount social challenges.
Written by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) based on its research sponsored by Citi and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), released March 2008, 41 pages, available here.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a multilateral development bank focused on European and Asian ex-Communist economies, will provide a USD 1 million loan to IMON, a Tajikistan-based microfinance institution (MFI) – its third such loan thus far.
Unitus Inc., an American nonprofit committed to poverty relief through microfinance facilitation, has announced that the number of clients reached by its network of microfinance partners surpassed 3 million for the first time.
A team from the University of Michigan won first prize in Knox Lawrence International LLC’s (KLI) inaugural Africa MBA Business Plan Competition for its strategy to cultivate and market a plant whose oil extract has potential for use in biodiesel.
Xigi.net, an Internet-based platform that tracks so-called “blended value investing” – investments that create economic, social, and environmental value – has just launched a new Social Capital Index, which it hopes will provide a reliable and comprehensive bank of information to investors and entrepreneurs about social-capital investment instruments and transactions.
Banco Compartamos, S.A., Mexico’s largest microfinance bank and a lightning rod in the debate regarding for-profit micro-lending, reported a significant year-over-year increase in net income for 2007, driven primarily by a rapid growth in clients that bolstered the company’s loan portfolio.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, will invest up to USD 20 million in debt and USD 400,000 in advisory services for the expansion of the small and medium enterprise (SME) lending and housing finance operations of Banco Ficohsa, the third largest bank in Honduras.
Spanish retail and commercial bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA) will invest 25 billion pesos, equivalent to USD 13.3 million, into starting a Colombian leasing operation this year and plans to open the country’s first microcredit bank during Q3.
The Microfinance Capital Markets Newsletter of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) reported that Dexia Micro-Credit Fund, a Luxembourg-based fund, issued loans of USD 3 million to FINSOL, a Honduran microfinance institution (MFI); USD 2 million to FUNDESER, a Nicaraguan MFI; USD 1.5 million to the Bai Tushum Financial Foundation (BTFF), a Kyrgyz MFI; and USD 100,000 to the Fund for SME Support Sodruzhestvo, a Russian MFI.
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