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Few Sub-Saharan Africans Aware of Local Microfinance Options
July, 30 2010
Washington, D.C. - Residents in sub-Saharan African countries report a wide range of awareness about the availability of microfinance lending in their communities, suggesting these institutions remain locally inaccessible to many who would benefit most from using them
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India: Rich I.P.O. Brings Controversy to SKS Microfinance
July, 29 2010
India - An Indian company with rich American backers is about to raise up to $350 million in a stock offering closely watched by philanthropists around the world, showing that big profits can be made from small helping-hand loans to poor cowherds and basket weavers. The company, SKS Microfinance, is one of the biggest players in the field known as microfinance, which involves loans, often as small as $20, that banks might consider too tiny and risky to bother with.
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SKS Microfinance: Finance vs Ethics or Finance with Ethics
July, 28 2010
New Dehli, India - SKS has announced the final pricing range for its IPO at Rs850 to Rs 985 per share. We think these are punchy valuations even at the lower end implying a 5.8x FY10 P/B (pre money) and 3.8x FY10 P/B (post money). Whilst global microfinance peers tend to trade at a higher multiple, those have significantly higher return ratios (30-40%) compared to SKS’ FY10 RoE of 21%
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India's SKS raises $64 mln from anchor investors
July, 28 2010
Mumbai, India - India's SKS Microfinance Ltd said on Tuesday it had secured about 3 billion rupees ($64 million) by allocating shares to anchor investors as part of an initial public offering to raise as much as $353 million
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A New Financial Access Frontier: Persons With Disabilities
July, 27 2010
United States - Can a person with a disability living in a developing country become the valued client of a financial institution? According to Harvard Law professor Michael Stein, 650 million people around the world, nearly 10 percent of humanity, have a disability, and over 80 percent of these people live in developing countries. Yet, in research studies, fewer than 1 percent of the clients of microfinance institutions, dedicated to serving the world's financially excluded people, were found to be persons with disabilities. One of the last great human rights struggles is only now starting to penetrate the world of low-income finance
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EU Implements Guarantee Action Under Progress Microfinance Facility
July, 26 2010
Luxemburg - The European Union has published in the EU Official Journal of 24 July 2010 a notice addressed to intermediaries aiming to provide micro-credits or guarantees supporting micro-credits, about the implementation of the Guarantee Action under the European Progress Microfinance Facility. Among the 100 M€ channelled through Progress Facility, 25 M€ will be allocated to this Action Guarantee
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Building Microfinance into an Asset Class
July, 22 2010
New York, United States of America - The $44 billion global microfinance industry got a boost recently as private equity investor BlueOrchard attracted $195 million to a new fund aimed at helping microfinance lenders modernize their organizations, improve governance and risk management, and develop into fully-fledged financial institutions
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PFRDA to Launch Pension Scheme for Poor
July, 22 2010
New Dehli, India - Interim pension regulator PFRDA on Thursday introduced a new scheme, NSP Lite, for the economically deprived sections of the society.
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Sri Lanka to Regulate Micro-Finance Institutions
July, 22 2010
Pita Kotte, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's government is to set up a dedicated authority to regulate micro-finance institutions to make their supervision more effective, a government minister said
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Ethical Investment: Can it Outperform Other Funds?
July, 21 2010
Bristol, United Kingdom - Some investors might remain sceptical of ethical investment's ability to outperform its non-ethical rivals, but one expert has insisted that it can, and does, produce higher returns
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Microfinancing Spreads Beyond India’s Grassroots
July, 20 2010
New Dehli, India - Traditionally, poor Indians have relied on private money lenders – often charging interest rates of at least 36 per cent per year – when they have needed to fund school fees, medical emergencies, weddings, or even working capital for their farms. Failure to pay often meant violence – or loss of treasured assets
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The Fundamental Premise of Securitisation: The Microfinance Case Study
July, 14 2010
Bangalore, India - In a recent post in Microfinance Focus, Daniel Rozas and Vinod Kothari have argued that microfinance securitisation does not, in reality, separate ‘pool risk’ from ‘originator risk’ and hence should not be rated very differently from the originator of the portfolio. Some of the arguments are well reasoned out such as the lack of control over co-mingling of cashflows and lack of regulatory supervision on ‘bilateral assignments’. However, some of the other arguments presented beg greater scrutiny
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India: Private Equity Funds Step Up Investments in MFIs
July, 13 2010
Chennai, India - Private equity (PE) investments in microfinance institutions (MFIs), which fell by 12 per cent last year (2009), have recovered this year. Between January and June this year, MFIs have attracted PE investment totalling $84 million (about Rs 386.4 crore) — an increase of a little over 15 per cent over the first half of 2009
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India: Sahulat to Facilitate 500 Interest-Free Cooperative Branches
July, 12 2010
New Dehli, India - The Sahulat Microfinance Society has decided to promote and facilitate 500 interest-free cooperative branches across the country by the end of 2016. The Society in its July 9 meeting held here also decided to establish four regional offices and training and research units
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Egypt Readies Bills to Reform Investment Climate
July, 08 2010
Cairo, Egypt - The Ministry of Investment is currently moving forward with a set of new laws and amendments to develop the legal framework governing investment in Egypt, officials said in late June
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India: Banks Should Charge Less than 10% while Lending to Microfinance Institutions
July, 08 2010
New Delhi, India - Vijay Mahajan, who in June took over as chairman of the Washington DC-based Consultative Group to Assist Poor (CGAP), wants banks in India to lend to microfinance institutions (MFIs) at sub-10% interest under the new base rate regime. Banks lend to MFIs at 11.5-14.5% interest, and these lenders charge rates as high as 30% for small loans to the poor
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Syria: Responsible Growth Key to Success of Microfinance
July, 07 2010
Damascus, Syria - Syria's microfinance industry will only succeed if it adopts sustainable growth practices that balance the interests of lending institutions with their clients, Sanabel Board Director Youssef Fawaz told a microfinance conference held in Damascus last month.
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India: The Hidden Risks Behind Microfinance Securitization
July, 06 2010
India - The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently promulgated proposed guidelines for securitization by non-banking finance companies that if implemented, would essentially gut the widespread Indian MFI practice of selling (assigning) and securitizing portions of their portfolios.
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India: Microfinance Network to Have Ombudsmen, Credit Bureau
July, 03 2010
Hyderabad, India - Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN), a self-regulatory organisation of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the country, has decided to institute offices of ombudsmen on the lines of banking ombudsmen to help in grievance redressal and launch a credit bureau later in the year
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Uzbekistan: Developing Microlending
July, 03 2010
Tashkent, Uzbekistan - According to the Uzbek Agency for Financial Sector Development, three projects on further development of micro financing have been launched in 2010. They are being implemented by the Central Bank in cooperation with the UN Development Programme, German Technical Cooperation Center (GTZ), and the International Finance Corporation.
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Switzerland: Meeting of Global Microfinance Experts in Bern
July, 02 2010
Bern, Switzerland - Bern was the centre of the microfinance world from 28 June to 2 July 2010. The annual conference of the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) at the Kursaal was attended by 200 specialists who exchanged views on achieving a sustainable financial market. SDC director Martin Dahinden and four leading microfinance experts held a media conference at which they summarised the outcome of the conference
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Akula shines light on India microlending in SKS IPO
July, 01 2010
Mumbai, India - As a controversial $250-$350 million IPO draws nearer, Vikram Akula, founder of India's largest microlender, SKS Microfinance, crunches numbers. India's first microfinance institution (MFI) to tap the capital market has nearly 7 million clients, has disbursed close to $3 billion in total and claims a 99 percent repayment rate. But critics have jumped on another number altogether
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-0.28% · 
4.56% · 
0.12% · 
product.
