SPECIAL REPORT: PAYGo Firms Struggle Less with Nonpayment, More with Supply of Solar Products, Equity Funding Since Onset of Pandemic

European Microfinance PlatformMariama Kamara of Smiling Through Light, a women-run provider of solar products in rural Sierra Leone, stayed in business during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to emergency funding from the Shine Campaign. Demand is high for Smiling Through Light’s products, but the last shipment of solar appliances from the manufacturer took five months to arrive, causing a delay in paying staff. Only since the onset of the pandemic – and at the request of customers

SPECIAL REPORT: Sidian Bank Lends $4.5m for Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) to MSMEs in Kenya with Support from Aqua for All

European Microfinance PlatformDuring today’s case study presentation on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Loise Mwangi of Kenya’s Sidian Bank shared her institution’s success in providing pandemic-relief loans for WASH equipment. Sidian lent about half of the funds, which total the equivalent of USD 4.7 million, to small and medium-sized WASH re-sellers, and the other half to

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: MFS Africa Acquiring Baxi to Expand Digital Payment Network for SMEs into Nigeria

Mobile Financial Solutions (MFS) Africa, a digital payments network based in South Africa, recently announced it will acquire Baxi, a platform facilitating online payments for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in underserved communities in Nigeria. Verdant Capital, a corporate finance firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions,

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Trafficking Survivors to Access Microfinance from NAPTIP of Nigeria

Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) recently announced it is planning to offer microfinance to survivors of human trafficking as part of a set of “sustainable and evidence-based rehabilitation, reintegration and empowerment programs.” These programs also will include

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Moneylenders Arrested for Extortion, Impersonating Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority Staff

Police in the Buikwe district of Uganda recently arrested six employees of Moskal Enterprises Uganda Limited, a moneylending firm based in the Luwero district, for impersonating staff of the

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Oikocredit, Opportunity International Commit $100m to Education Finance in Low-income Countries

Opportunity International, a US-based nonprofit providing microfinance and other services in 30 countries, and Oikocredit, a Netherlands-based impact investor, recently announced a three-year partnership valued at USD 100 million. Through increased funding of financial institutions partnered with Opportunity International’s EduFinance program, Opportunity International and Oikocredit aim to

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EU Donates $8.9m to Huruma Fund for Technical Assistance Facility Promoting Agricultural Microfinance, Market Development

Huruma Fund, a Spain-based vehicle supporting rural financial services providers in low- and moderate-income countries, recently received a donation of EUR 7.7 million (USD 8.9 million) from the EU for a technical assistance facility (TAF) set up by the two primary entities behind Huruma, Gawa Capital Partners and Compañia Española de Financiación del Desarrollo (COFIDES), both of Spain. The TAF will support companies, such as

MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: “Building Financial Resilience: How Financial Service Providers Can Help Low-income Customers to Manage Risk,” by Alexandra Sanchez et al, Published by Savings at the Frontier

The authors propose that financial services providers (FSPs) have opportunities to enhance the resilience of users of informal saving mechanisms (ISMs) by developing services that help ISMs manage risk. In this context, resilience is defined as

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: AVPA, Investorflow.org, Forge Partnership to Develop Impact Investments in Africa, Resulting in Expanding Membership Base, Increasing Capital Flow in Africa, and Rising Overall Investor Collaboration

African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA), a Kenya-based “Pan-African network for social investors,” and Investorflow.org, a US-based platform that helps impact investors find co-investors, recently announced a partnership. Dr Frank Aswani, the CEO of AVPA, stated that the tie-up “will allow AVPA to add another 500-plus

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation Lends Local Currency Worth $1.5m to Yehu of Kenya, ASA Microfinance Rwanda

The Grameen Credit Agricole (GCA) Foundation, whose head office is in Luxembourg, has announced the disbursal of the following local-currency loans: to Kenya’s Yehu the approximate equivalent of USD 888,000 and to

SPECIAL REPORT: SAM (the French Acronym for African Microfinance Week) in Progress in Rwanda Until October 22, 2021

Get an overview of the five-day SAM from the ADA press release or follow the proceedings on our Twitter feed!

This feature is part of a sponsored series on the SAM 2021, which is organized by the Luxembourgish NGO ADA, the Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN), the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) and the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda (AMIR), with the support of the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs of Luxembourg and the Government of Rwanda. The event is taking place from October 18 to October 22 in Kigali, Rwanda. MicroCapital has been engaged to promote and document each of the SAMs since 2015.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: African Guarantee Fund to Back Additional $25m in Lending by Oikocredit to Microfinance Institutions; Small, Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs); Women-led Businesses – Including in Agriculture, Renewable Energy Sectors

Oikocredit, a cooperative investor based in the Netherlands, recently signed an agreement valued at USD 25 million with the African Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (AGF). The deal increases the parties’ 10-year loan guarantee volume to USD 43 million, allowing Oikocredit to increase its

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Oikocredit Lends $9m to Sidian Bank for SMEs in Kenya

Oikocredit, a cooperative investor based in the Netherlands, recently lent KES 990 million (USD 8.9 million) to Kenya’s Sidian Bank for on-lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Sidian is a commercial institution with 42 branches offering corporate services,

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Agents for Impact Loans $14m from IIV to Kinara Capital of India, BRAC Tanzania for Microfinance, SMEs

Agents for Impact (AFI), a Germany-based impact investing company, recently informed MicroCapital that it has issued the following loans on behalf of Germany’s Invest in Visions (IIV): EUR 8 million (USD 9.2 million) to India’s Kinara Capital and USD 5 million to BRAC Tanzania Finance Limited. AFI aims to bring together investors to make progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Kinara issues collateral-free loans to micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises. The loans, which range in size from INR 100,000 (USD 1,300) to INR 3 million (USD 40,000), are intended for purposes such as working capital and asset purchases. Although the firm promises “digital first”

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation Lends $3.7m to Assilassimé Solidarite of Togo, Agora Microfinance Zambia (AMZ)

The Grameen Credit Agricole (GCA) Foundation, whose head office is in Luxembourg, has announced its disbursal of local-currency loans to Togo-based Assilassimé Solidarite in an amount approximately equivalent to

SPECIAL REPORT: SIDI Credits the SAM Investors’ Fair with Seeding Partnerships with Emerging MFIs in Burundi, Ethiopia, Mozambique

During the SAM (Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance – African Micro­­finance Week in French) in October, the 2021 Investors’ Fair will build on the 2019 Investors’ Fair, during which 120 microfinance institu­tions (MFIs) and 24 investors met in over 500 “speed-dating” sessions to explore whether they might be compatible partners. Of the MFIs, which represented 24 countries, about half were for-profit firms, and about half were organized as cooperatives or NGOs.

At the 2019 event, Altemius Millinga, the Managing Director of Tanzania’s Yetu Microfinance Bank, told MicroCapital that the Investors’ Fair “was the best part of the SAM because I was able to interact with investors, while at the same time sharing experiences immediately with other MFIs. The SAM gave me the opportunity to meet investors and make several preliminary proposals on funding; it was surely worth the investment!”

FEFISOL, an Africa-focused fund launched by SIDI, has had a presence at all four of the SAM Investors’ Fairs to date, and its repre­sentatives will return this year. The CEO of SIDI, Dominique Lesaffre, reports that his institution has leveraged the Investors’ Fair not only to develop relation­ships with “successful institutions such as Centenary Bank in Uganda or Kafo Jiguinew in Mali – with their massive social-financial outreach – but also with emerging MFIs such as Microbanco Confiança of Mozam­bique, Ishaka of Burundi and Buusaa Gonofaa of Ethiopia.”

Edmund Higenbottam, the Managing Director of Verdant Capital, also

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Babylon’s E-health Reaches 30% of Rwandans via Phone-sharing

Babylon, a digital healthcare firm with offices in five countries, recently expanded its Babyl service in Rwanda so that multiple users can access the service from the same mobile phone, including if the phone is not a smartphone. Previously, the service only was accessible by one user per phone. As a result, the number of daily Babyl consultations has risen from 3,000 to

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Golden Brigades Launches Eskala, Investor of Microequity in Cooperatives in Rural Central America

Golden Brigades, which is registered as a charity in five North American and European countries, recently launched a for-profit entity called Eskala to focus on using microequity to support cajas rurales, rural banking cooperatives. As of 2021, Eskala has invested in