The leading crowd-sourced microcredit platform, Kiva.org, has recently launched micro-lending in India. I am a big fan of Kiva and I am a personal lender on the platform having made more than 200 loans — see my Kiva lender page. But their micro-lending product for India is very different than what they offer for other countries.… Continue reading Kiva launches in India with poor product experience
Interesting personal experience article by Jitin Mitra on the status and impact of microfinance in India. As a result of the microfinance crisis in India, there has been a significant decline in the availability of microloans for poor Indian workers. While certain politicians gloat that they are protecting poor borrowers, Jitin notes that “the reality is… Continue reading Microfinance is more than a loan
Poor Economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty By: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo This is a continuation of my book review. See Part I of book review > Here are a few highlights I took away for the book: Most poor aren’t hungry. Despite what the experts say. Generally, the… Continue reading Book Review: Poor Economics – Part II
Poor Economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty By: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo This is one of the best books I’ve read on addressing global poverty. And I’ve read a LOT of books on this topic. It summarizes a massive amount of primary in-the-field research and has lots of interesting… Continue reading Book Review: Poor Economics
Interesting article posted by Forbes challenging the widespread use of the general term “entrepreneur” to describe both Bill Gates and a poor street fruit seller in a developing country. In reality, there are entrepreneurs by necessity (because you have to eat) and those by choice or opportunity. Forbes argues that we do a disservice to… Continue reading Entrepreneurs by Opportunity vs. Necessity
This week, the Reserve Bank of India (India’s central banking regulator) proposed significant new microfinance regulations which would impact the majority of microfinance lending in India. There are many new regulation recommendations which they hope to have adopted as early as April 1, 2011. Here are a few highlights: Create a new non-banking financial company… Continue reading India Regulator Proposes Radical Microfinance Reforms
Muhammad Yunus’ OpEd piece in Friday’s New York Times entitled Sacrificing Microcredit for Megaprofits is plainly and simply factually challenged. Yunus advocates for changes which will result in fewer of the working poor receiving quality financial services and those who do will pay more for those services. [NOTE: Those of you who read my blog… Continue reading Disinformation on Microfinance Hurts the Poor
Good video explainer and analysis on the microcredit crisis in the state of Andra Pradesh in India. I recommend if you’d like to get a good overview of the history and situation. A Ujjivan client is highlighted in the first and second video. Ujjivan is one of the most socially responsible and professionally run… Continue reading India microcredit crisis analysis
Finally a reporter who actually attempts to explain the objective facts on the current microfinance crisis in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Microfinance by the Numbers by Eric Bellman Here are a few highlights: Default rates by borrowers were ~2% before the politicians intervened and now have risen to 50% since they instructed borrowers… Continue reading India microfinance crisis by the numbers
CGAP (part of The World Bank) has recently produced an analysis of SKS Microfinance IPO in India. This is the first IPO of an Indian MFI. The IPO was 13 times oversubscribed … that is, cialis 13 times more demand than availability of IPO shares. SKS priced at the high end of their range with… Continue reading SKS Microfinance IPO Report
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