In Ghana, it’s popularly known as susu. In Cameroon, tontines or chilembe. And in South Africa, stokfel. Today, you’d most likely call it plain-old microfinance, the nearest term we have for it. Age-old indigenous credit schemes have run perfectly well without much outside intervention for generations.
6 Sep, 2010, 08.15AM IST, Sanjeev Sinha, ET Bureau
Retail finance was among the prominent sectors that faced the brunt of the economic slowdown after the sub-prime mess in the US. Most industry experts are still sceptical about the growth prospects in retail finance. However, Ruben de la Mora, president & CEO of Fullerton India, [...]
(The Philippine Star) Updated September 07, 2010 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines – The International Finance Corp. (IFC), and Daiwa Securities Group plan to issue a bond this month that will expand access to finance
for poor and low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. IFC is a member of the World Bank Group.
The bond is expected [...]
By Arun Duggal
Financial inclusion is an idea whose time has finally come in India. It will enable hundreds of millions of low-income people to improve their economic and social status by participating in the financial system.
Not only have the government and the Reserve Bank of India become very keen to promote inclusion, [...]
30 Aug, 2010, 01.42AM IST, Shailesh Menon,ET Bureau
MUMBAI: Microfinance companies are increasingly adopting the securitisation model to raise capital. Over a dozen organised lenders have raised money over the past one year by selling their assets (micro-loan units) in the securitised form. This involves the pooling of similar type of micro-loans and repackaging them [...]
Technology and development: A growing number of initiatives are promoting bottom-up ways to deliver energy to the world’s poor
Sep 2nd 2010
AROUND 1.5 billion people, or more than a fifth of the world’s population, have no access to electricity, and a billion more have only an unreliable and intermittent supply. Of the people without [...]
New Delhi, September 02, 2010
Being the first Indian to head Citigroup, CEO Vikram Pandit says Citi will continue to support microfinance in India and work towards financial inclusion. Excerpts: Your job has been described as one the toughest banking jobs in the history… Leading Citi through one of the worst global slowdowns has [...]
SKS Microfinance has risen by more than 30% on it’s issue price of Rs 985 .
The market capitalization of SKS Microfinance, India’s largest micro finance company which listed on the stock markets on the 16th August 2010 has crossed US$ 2 Billion in a short span of two week. The stock also made a [...]
John D Conroy | September 01, 2010
Enthusiasm for microfinance has surged since Professor Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
This November, APEC finance ministers will be asked to adopt an initiative on “financial inclusion” when they meet in Kyoto.
Unfortunately, this coincides with a wave of financialization of [...]
