MICROFINANCE EVENT: USAID, SHOPS Present “Panel Discussion on Wealth and Health: Leveraging Microfinance for Better Health Outcomes,” June 13, 2011, Washington, DC, USA, And Online

Event Name: Panel Discussion: Wealth and Health: Leveraging Microfinance for Better Health Outcomes

Event Date: June 13, 2011

Event Time: 11:00 am to 1:00 pm

Event Location: Online or at the Diplomat Ballroom, Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert Street NW, Washington, DC, USA

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) Expects Consolidation to Result in Fewer, Stronger Rural Banks

According to the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP), an association of approximately 700 banks that aims to promote rural development, the rural banking sector in the Philippines is expected to consist of fewer but stronger banks as mergers and consolidations continue. “Mergers and consolidations that are happening will result in fewer rural banks that are stronger in terms of resources,” said Tomas S Gomez IV, spokesman of RBAP, according to Business World.

MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: Bank-Insured RoSCA for Microfinance: Experimental Evidence in Poor Egyptian Villages; By Mahmoud El-Gamal, Mohamed El-Komi, Dean Karlan, Adam Osman; Published by Rice University Department of Economics

By Mahmoud El-Gamal, Mohamed El-Komi, Dean Karlan, Adam Osman; published by Rice University Department of Economics; April 2011; 27 pages; available at http://www.uh.edu/~achin/workshop/EMF-04-11.pdf

MICROFINANCE EVENT: Triple Bottom Line Investing (TBLI) Presents “TBLI Conference Europe 2011,” November 10 & 11, 2011, London, United Kingdom

Event Name: TBLI Conference Europe 2011

Event Location: Grange St Paul’s Hotel, London, United Kingdom

Event Date: November 10 & November 11, 2011

See Our Comprehensive Event Calendar at: http://microfinanceassociation.ning.com/events

MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: Microfinance and Social Investment; By Jonathan Conning and Jonathan Morduch; Published by The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) at New York University’s Robert F Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Hunter College

By Jonathan Conning and Jonathan Morduch; published by Financial Access Initiative (FAI) at New York University’s Robert F Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Hunter College; April 8, 2011; 30 pages; available at: http://financialaccess.org/sites/default/files/Microfinance%20&%20Social%20Investment_Conning&Morduch.pdf

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: G20 SME (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise) Finance Online Consultations Being Held Through June 17, 2011

The G20 SME (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise) Finance Online Consultations are now ongoing through June 17 to help shape the policy recommendations of the SME Finance Sub-Group, which was launched as part of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion to improve access to financial services for the poor. The Group of Twenty (G20) was established in 1999 to bring together finance ministers and central bank governors of “systematically important” industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Paper Gains on Early Investment in SKS Microfinance Largely Evaporate For Sequoia Capital

Since its initial investment in SKS Microfinance, an India-based microfinance institution (MFI), Sequoia Capital, a US-based venture capital firm, has experienced significant gains on paper followed by partial losses of those gains.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Nigeria’s Capital Express Assurance Purchases Majority Shareholding in Kenya’s Capex Life Insurance, Which Plans to Downsize to Focus on Microfinance

Capital Express Assurance, a Nigeria-based life insurance company, has purchased a majority shareholding in Capex Life Assurance, a Kenya-based life insurance company formerly known as Trinity Life Assurance. Capital Express Assurance purchased a 65 percent stake in Capex Life Assurance for USD 975,000 [1]. The remaining 35 percent stake was purchased by a group of individual Kenyan investors led by current Capex Life Assurance general manager, James Macharia [1].

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: The Wall Street Journal Reports on Expansion of Indonesian Banks into Microfinance Sector, $30b in Microloans Are Distributed in 5 Years

US-based newspaper The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Indonesian banks are quickly expanding into the country’s microfinance market [1].

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development Announces Launch of Diaspora Investment in Agriculture Initiative

The International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD’s) Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR), a fund that aims to reduce poverty by channeling remittances to finance development in rural areas of developing countries, announced that it recently launched its Diaspora Investment in Agriculture (DIA) Initiative.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Panel Discusses Balancing Profit, Mission, Impact at Microfinance USA Conference 2011, Presented by Opportunity Fund, ACCION, Kiva, in New York City, May 23 – 24

Opportunity Fund, a nonprofit organization based in the US state of California that offers microloans and microsavings primarily to people in the San Francisco Bay area; ACCION International, a microfinance organization that provides lending and financial education to small businesses in twenty-three countries; and Kiva, a US-based online portal that allows individuals to make loans to microfinance institutions (MFIs) for on-lending to poor people in sixty countries, hosted the Microfinance USA Conference 2011 on May 23 and May 24 in New York City.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: “Monetary Theory and Electronic Money: Reflections on the Kenyan Experience” Published by Economists Robert M Townsend of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tavneet Suri of MIT, Economist William Jack of Georgetown University

US-based economists Robert M Townsend and Tavneet Suri from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and William Jack from Georgetown University recently co-authored a paper entitled Monetary Theory and Electronic Money: Reflections on the Kenyan Experience.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Union Bank of India (UBI) Launching Microfinance Schemes Under “unioninclusions”

Union Bank of India (UBI), a nationalized bank with approximately USD 44 billion in total assets, recently announced the launch of “unioninclusions” in an effort to deepen financial inclusion. Announced in Mumbai by Shri Pranab Mukherjee, India’s Finance Minister, the initiative includes the following five schemes: 1) the opening of 11 specialized financial-inclusion branches; 2) biometric card-to-card remittance facility for migrant laborers; 3) mobile van banking to serve unbanked villages in the state of Odisha; 4) publication of a comic book series intended to spread financial literacy among illiterate people in rural areas; 5) funding solar power for Union Adarsh Gram, a program launched by UBI in June 2010 to adopt 101 rural villages across India to offer development and modernization.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: India’s MicroSave Publishes “No Thrills: Dormancy in NFA Accounts,” by Ann-Byrd Platt, Akhilesh Singh, Sachin Bansal, Anurodh Giri, Akhand J Tiwari re “No Frill” Microfinance Accounts

MicroSave, an Indian for-profit technical assistance, training and resource center, recently published “No Thrills: Dormancy in NFA Accounts,” a study on India’s “No Frill Accounts (NFAs),” a basic account option legally required of private banks as part of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) “Financial Inclusion Programme.”

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) Brief “Measuring Changes in Client Lives Through Microfinance: Contributions of Different Approaches” Finds Existing RCTs Insufficient to Prove Success of MicroCredit

A recent brief published by CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) examines different approaches to measuring changes in client lives that may be attributed to microfinance.

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Grassroots Business Fund (GBF) Reaches $8.4m Disbursed to Small and Medium-Size Enterprises in Africa, Asia, Latin America With Support from International Finance Corporation (IFC), Individual Donors

The Grassroots Business Fund (GBF), a nonprofit investment fund founded in 2008 by former World Bank employee Harold Rosen, has made 32 investments worth a total of USD 8.4 million in small and medium-size enterprises in Africa, Asia and Latin America as of May 2011. Investees have included Latco International, a Bolivian producer and exporter of sesame seeds, and Hai Tanzania, a cocoa trading company. GBF is currently seeking USD 60 million in an effort to scale its “hybrid” business model, which employs a combination of grants and for-profit investments that seek to generate “low double-digit returns to investors.” According to Mr Rosen, “half a dozen or so” angel investors plan to invest a total of “between USD 100,000 and USD 1 million” [1].

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Opportunity International Celebrates Grand Opening of Operations in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Opportunity International (OI), a global network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 24 countries, has celebrated the grand opening of its operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). OI DRC is seeking to provide affordable financial services to the country’s working poor through a network of community banks.