Polaris Software Lab Limited (Polaris), an India-based banking and insurance software company, and MFI Enterprise Solutions (MFIES), an information technology solutions provider and subsidiary of the MFI Group, recently signed a strategic agreement to “modernize” Ethiopian finance through software and software training. Continue Reading »

Freedom from Hunger, a California-based international development nonprofit, recently published the results of a four-year grant program enabling the organization and partner microfinance banks to add healthcare options to microfinance offerings for 1.5 million of the world’s rural poor in Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, India and the Philippines. Continue Reading »

The Committee of Banking Supervisors of West and Central Africa, an organization that supervises credit establishments and sets prudential banking legislation in western and central Africa, announced earlier this week that starting from 2014, all commercial banks including microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), a subsidiary of the African Union [1], will need to have capital reserves of USD 20 million. Continue Reading »

Barclays, a London-based international financial services provider, recently announced through Vinit Chandra, CEO of Barclays Africa, that the bank will invest USD 50 million in microfinance activities in Africa. Continue Reading »

Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane, the Zambian Minister of Finance and National Planning, recently announced that Zambia would extend its five-year financial sector development plan (FSDP), which had originally been slated to expire in 2009, to 2012 in an effort to build better financial infrastructure for different income groups. Continue Reading »

The South Africa Treasury and Financial Services Board recently announced it will introduce legislation with the intention of expanding the reach of insurance products to the low-income population. Continue Reading »

According to a recent study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the development arm of the United Nations, a humanitarian organization promoting peace and better living standards, 21 percent of the Nigerian adult population – 18 million people – have access to financial services, with women and youth least likely to have access. Continue Reading »

At the recent “First Southern Sudan Microfinance Conference,” microfinance practitioners discussed the need to expand the microfinance industry in Southern Sudan by focusing on two objectives, building capacity and listening to clients. Continue Reading »

Event Name: Mitigating Cost of Access to Finance for Micro and Small Enterprises in South Africa

Event Date: September 29 – September 30, 2010 Continue Reading »

The nonprofit Social Development Fund of Gambia recently announced that the microfinance scheme of the Entrepreneur Promotion and Microfinance Development Project (EPMDP), a microfinance scheme established by the African Development Bank and the Government of Gambia, will create a microcredit fund of GMD 40 million (USD 1 million) for funding non-bank financial institutions in Gambia. Continue Reading »

Kenyan mobile phone operator, Safaricom, has reported that in July 2010 it added approximately 1.7 million new customers to its money transfer system, M-Pesa. As MicroCapital reported July 27, 2010, much of the increase comes as a result of recent Kenyan government regulation which requires registration of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards by mobile phone users and that mobile phone operators in Kenya have been encouraging subscribers to simultaneously activate a mobile bank account. Continue Reading »

Alhaji Muhammed Barike Sameel, the State Commissioner of Commerce and Industry for Nasarawa, Nigeria, recently stated that the state of Nasarawa plans to establish microfinance banks in all 13 of Nasarawa’s local municipalities. Continue Reading »

The Tanzania Association of Microfinance Institutions (TAMFI) and the Coalition of Tanzania Microfinance Practitioners and Service Providers Limited have recently merged after an independent team that was commissioned last year to resolve the issue recommended that, because they were essentially conducting the same functions, the existence of both institutions was only creating confusion among members and other microfinance stakeholders. Continue Reading »

By Paul M. Pronyk, James R. Hargreaves and Jonathan Morduch, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Volume 298, Number 16, October 2007, available at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/298/16/1925.pdf

In this paper, Paul Pronyk, James Hargreaves and Jonathan Morduch examine available evidence on the potential for microfinance to contribute toward achieving the United Nation’s (UN’s) Millennium Development Goals (MDG), with specific focus on improvements in health and the challenges and opportunities for expanding such outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular. Continue Reading »

Recent regulatory changes by Kenya’s Insurance Regulatory Authority that require an increase in the capital of insurance companies and the separation of life insurance business from general business could negatively impact the reach and volume of microinsurance in Kenya. Continue Reading »

The National Microfinance Bank (NMB), a commercial bank in Tanzania, has announced its intentions to provide ‘Juhudi’ loans of TSH 5 million (USD 3,300) to TSH 500 million (USD 330,000) to entrepreneurs in the country. According to Mr Kees Verbeek, the chief commercial officer of NMB, the issue for entrepreneurs is not whether loans are available, but rather if the interest rates, which reportedly vary between 18 to 25 percent in Tanzania, are affordable. Juhudi loans will be distributed at a 15 percent annual interest rate. Continue Reading »

With sponsorship from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a government agency that provides international economic and humanitarian assistance, Southern Sudan recently held what was billed as its first microfinance conference. The aim of the conference, which was held in the regional capital of Juba, was to provide a forum for stakeholders to exchange views about the status of microfinance in Southern Sudan and to develop a strategy to improve microfinance in the region. Continue Reading »

MTN Ghana, a member of the MTN Group, a mobile telecommunication service provider based in South Africa, recently launched its latest financial services product, MTN Mobile Money, in Cape Coast, Ghana. Continue Reading »