MICROCAPITAL STORY: Mercy Corps Recognized by Fast Company for its Innovative Microfinance Program "The Bank of Banks"

Fast Company Magazine named Mercy Corps as one of its 2009 Social Enterprises of the Year, recognizing the work it has done this past year as one of the “bold and timely ideas that wow us”. Mercy Corps is praised as “the bank of banks” for buying a struggling Balinese bank and reopening it as an organization that would “cut the costs and inefficiencies” of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and provide them capital, financial tools and tech platforms. Mercy Corps had also previously been recognized as one of the 45 Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World as a part of Fast Company’s 2008 Social Capitalist Awards. ACCION International, another organization involved in microfinance, was honoured with this recognition for the fifth year in a row. The other organizations that were honoured as 2009 Social Enterprises of the Year include Do Something, The Academy for Urban School Leadership, DataDyne, Civic Ventures, The Institute for OneWorld Health, The Acumen Fund, Husk Power Systems, and Hopelab.

The program which for which the Social Enterprise of the Year recognition is bestowed is Mercy Corps’ MAXIS (Maximizing Financial Access and Innovation at Scale) program, which was created with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in June 2008 and whose launch was covered in this MicroCapital story. Through MAXIS Mercy Corps has built the bank of banks (BoB) which provides financial products and services to thousands of MFIs, and a partnership with BoB enables MFIs to provide diversified products such as micro insurance, remittances, mortgage finance and mobile phone banking. MAXIS works to expand the access of low income people to microfinance in Indonesia and the Philippines by using working with MICRA (Microfinance Innovation Center for Resources and Alternatives) to build capacity, transparency and performance. MICRA is an Indonesian foundation established by Mercy Corps in 2006 to “in order to institutionalize and expand its work over the past six years in microfinance throughout Indonesia”. MICRA’s role in MAXIS is to build MFI performance, conduct market and product research and perform ratings for transparency and performance.

Mercy Corps is an Oregan-based anti-poverty organization which began in 1979 as Save The Refugees Fund, and was incorporated in 1982 as Mercy Corps International. They began lending money in 1989 which later evolved into the creation of MFIs, and Mercy Corps has formally offered microfinance services since 1997. Mercy Corps and its twelve partner institutions have disbursed over USD 1 billion in 1.17 million loans. They have over 209 thousand active clients, 59 percent of which are women with USD 267 million in outstanding loans. The total assets of Mercy Corps and its partner institutions for microfinance in 2007 stood at USD 329 million and total equity was USD 53 million. In addition to the above mentioned MAXIM program and partner institutions, Mercy Corps has also created the Pheonix Fund, which gathers privately raised seed capital to underwrite high-risk, high-reward projects in developing countries. The total assets of Mercy Corps alone are reported as USD 187 million for 2007.

Fast Company is a business magazine owned and published by Mansueto Ventures LLC which also publishes Inc. and was founded in 2005. Fast Company caters to creative professional and attempts to identify new best practices and help “a new breed of leader work smarter and more effectively”. Fast Company reported a total paid circulation base of over 749 thousand in 2007, with newsstand sales at over 30 thousand, and has been among the top ten fastest growing newsstand titles for the last three consecutive reporting periods.

Additional Reading:

The Oregonian: “Mercy Corps’ microfinance program gets recognition”

Fast Company: “Eureka!: Social Enterprises of the Year” “Social Capitalists: Mercy Corps, 45 Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World” “Mercy Corps: The Bank of Banks”

MICRA: Home

MicroCapital Story: “Mercy Corps Buys a Commercial Bank in Bali to Service the Microfinance Sector in Indonesia”

Mercy Corps: “Home” “2007 Annual Report”