ABC World Asia, a private equity fund launched in May by the philanthropic arm of Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek Holdings, recently raised SGD 385 million (USD 281 million) to invest in China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. In particular, the fund will target
Category: Investment Funds
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Agora Microfinance Zambia (AMZ) Borrows $324k from Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation
Agora Microfinance Zambia (AMZ) recently borrowed the local-currency equivalent of USD 324,000 from the Luxembourg-based Grameen Credit Agricole (GCA) Foundation. The loan has a term of three years. During 2018, the microfinance institution (MFI) began offering
SPECIAL REPORT: Partnerships, Patience, Sizing Goals for Hummingbirds to Meet SDGs Via Financial Inclusion, Complimentary Services
“We 
need to develop services with added value to increase impact,” said Corinne Molitor of ADA during the first Wednesday plenary session at SAM. In the absence of non-financial services, financial inclusion does not lead directly to reduced poverty. To find evidence of poverty alleviation, she says, we must consider the long term because reducing poverty is a very slow process. Mathieu Ciowela of the UN Development Program said of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that, “We have been implementing this for four years. Maybe in 10 years we’ll have data on progress.”
Adrian Kamenitzer of the European Investment Bank also spoke in terms of decades rather than years. He told a personal story of growing up in Romania and observing the transition from communism. “In 1990, we had a new regime. We had hopes,
SPECIAL REPORT: Diffusing Excuses for Failing to Measure Microfinance Institutions’ Social Performance
Amelia Greenberg of the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF), at a SAM session on measuring social impact, reviewed some of the excuses microfinance institution leaders use to postpone measuring client outcomes. Some say satisfaction surveys are sufficient, or they feel a robust process will be too expensive. Some worry that it is unreasonable to claim a cause-effect relationship between their institution’s financial services and changes in clients’ lives.
Colin Rice of South Africa’s Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF) argued that it is valuable to start by measuring just a few parameters that the organization is already tracking. Monitoring the amount that clients save over time is a prime example. It is easy to
SPECIAL REPORT: Fostering Economic Resilience in the Face of Climate Change with Microinsurance, Savings, Investments in Agriculture
Dan Zook of ISF Advisors opened the SAM session on “Fostering Economic Resilience in the Face of Climate Change” arguing that smallholder farmers are the “number one most vulnerable in the world to climate change…so it’s important that we talk about adaptation financing.” A survey by CGAP segments the needs of farmers as follows: (1) subsistence farmers are the poorest and most vulnerable; they need savings and insurance; (2) commercial farmers that sell cash crops can benefit from investments such as drip irrigation; and (3) larger-scale farmers need to think about adaptation as well as how to reduce their own environmental impact. Although agriculture is the source of a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, Mr Zook said, smallholders have minimal environmental impact, except in the case of those raising a few particularly resource-intensive crops.
Yann Groeger of BlueOrchard cited his firm’s InsuResilience Investment Fund, which works with insurers to
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Invest In Visions’ IIV Mikrofinanzfonds Lends $49m to Microfinance Institutions in Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico and Timor-Leste – Including $10m to MFI Alternativa 19 del Sur
Germany-based Invest In Visions (IIV) recently loaned USD 10 million to Alternativa 19 del Sur, a microfinance institution (MFI) in Mexico. The investment is one of a group of loans totaling
SPECIAL REPORT: In 1 Day, Over 500 Meetings Between Microfinance Institutions, Funders at SAM Investors’ Fair
In a series of “speed-dating” sessions, 120 microfinance institutions (MFIs) and 24 investors met a total of over 500 times to find out whether they might be good matches for one another. This was during the five-day SAM conference that closed October 25 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The MFIs represented 24 countries. About half were for-profit firms, while about half were organized as cooperatives or NGOs.
Altemius Millinga, the Managing Director of Tanzania’s Yetu Microfinance Bank, tells MicroCapital that the Investors’ Fair “was the best part of SAM because
SPECIAL REPORT: Expanding Rural Finance with Public-private Partnerships in East Africa, Retraining Loan Officers in West Africa
At the session on “Enabling Rural Finance: Multisectoral Collaboration” during last week’s SAM conference, Hedwig Siewertsen of the Africa-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) discussed her work helping the government of Kenya experiment with mechanisms to extend the reach of its limited funding for agriculture. In 2016, the government had USD 7 million to invest in agriculture and was considering acting as a lender to disburse that money to the agricultural sector. Recognizing that the government may be better at market facilitation than managing money, AGRA worked with officials to bring in Barclays Bank of Kenya and the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) as partners. As a result, the government was able to leverage its USD 7 million to guarantee USD 23 million in lending from Barclays. This enabled 150,000 farmers as well as 300 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – including producer organizations – to access funding and non-financial assistance, such as help with business planning.
At the same session, Ousmane Thiongane of the Senegalese microfinance institution network U-IMCEC, described his organization’s struggles entering the agriculture sector. Despite agriculture being a risky proposition, the organization’s mission demanded that it serve rural areas. At first, he explained, “our rural agents weren’t well trained” in agriculture and thus the entry into rural areas “was a complete failure.” With agents lacking basic
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EFSE Launches “Power of Local Currency” Campaign in Eastern Europe with Investments in TBC Bank, BasisBank of Georgia; Belarusky Narodny Bank of Belarus; Araratbank of Armenia
The European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE), a microfinance investment vehicle domiciled in Luxembourg, recently launched a campaign promoting local-currency funding in Eastern Europe, with the financial support of the EU’s “EU4Business” initiative. Among the first borrowers under this “Power of Local Currency” campaign was
SPECIAL REPORT: Sébastien Boyé of I&P on Microfinance Institutions Digitalizing for SMEs, Taking on “Aggressive New Actors” in Africa
At last week’s SAM conference, Sébastien Boyé, the Chief Investment Officer of Investisseurs & Partenaires, delivered a keynote address on the future of financial inclusion in Africa. Mr Boyé expressed optimism about Africa’s future because of the continent’s dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit. He cited forecasts that by 2050, 250 million new jobs will be created in Africa as the continent’s GDP overtakes that of the EU. In terms of weaknesses, there is significant volatility, and several countries are getting into trouble with too much public borrowing.
Mr Boyé argues that stakeholders in the financial inclusion sector need to focus on topics such as human resources, academic research and digitalization. When it comes to digitalization, institutions must look to
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: C-Quadrat Dual Return Vision Microfinance Fund Lends $35m to MFIs in 11 Countries
C-Quadrat Asset Management loaned a total equivalent to USD 35 million to 16 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 11 countries from its Dual Return Vision Microfinance Funds during August and September. C-Quadrat, a member of Austria-based CQ Investment Group, tells MicroCapital that the MFIs have “a strong focus on their social mission, customer protection, transparency and
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Maj Places $10.6 in Equity in BASIX Group’s Sub-K, Business Correspondent Providing Microfinance on Behalf of Banks in India
Sub-K, a unit of India’s BASIX Social Enterprise Group, recently secured an equity investment of INR 750 million (USD 10.6 million) from Maj Invest, an asset manager based in Denmark. Sub-K is a financial technology (fintech) company that acts as an intermediary between financial institutions and their individual and microenterprise customers. It delivers lending, saving and payment services by “recruiting, training and equipping local entrepreneurs as Business Correspondent agents who serve as human
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation Lends $770k to Microfinance Institution Oxus Kyrgyzstan
The Grameen Credit Agricole (GCA) Foundation, whose head office is in Luxembourg, has issued a loan in the local currency equivalent of USD 770,000 to Oxus Kyrgyzstan, a member of the France-based Oxus Group. Oxus Kyrgyzstan
MICROFINANCE EVENT: FinovateAsia; October 14-16, 2019; Singapore
FinovateAsia is part of a conference series that focuses on financial technology (fintech). The first two days of the event offer keynote addresses and panel discussions on disruptive fintech innovations, such as
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation Lends $970k to Microfinance Institution Salym Finance of Kyrgyzstan
The Grameen Credit Agricole (GCA) Foundation, whose head office is in Luxembourg, has issued a loan in local currency approximately equivalent to USD 970,000 to Salym Finance, a microfinance institution in Kyrgyzstan. Founded in 2007 with the brand name Credit Systems,
MICROFINANCE EVENT: SAM (Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance / African Microfinance Week); October 21 – 25, 2019; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
The fourth SAM (Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance) includes five full days of trainings, conference sessions, an investors’ fair, an innovators’ village and research presentations, all on the theme “Pathways Towards Impact: African Inclusive Finance for the Sustainable Development Goals.” The training presenters are ADA, Amarante Consulting, Arendt, Banca Etica, BNP Paribas, BRS, Caritas Africa, Food and Agriculture Organization, Graine, Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation, the Microinsurance Network, MicroSave Consulting, Pamiga,
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Luxembourg, AFD, BMZ Funding AFI Multi-Donor Financial Inclusion Policy Implementation Facility for Africa
The Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg and the 100-member Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) recently announced the launch of a Multi-Donor Financial Inclusion Policy Implementation Facility (MD-PIF) in partnership with the French government’s Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the German government’s Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ). Luxembourg is granting
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: G7 Nations Raise $2.5b for 2X Challenge for Women Entrepreneurs
The Group of Seven (G7) large economies recently announced that they have mobilized a total of USD 2.47 billion in “gender-smart” investments as part of the 2X Challenge, which was initiated in 2018 by the US government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The goal of the 2X Challenge is to