Great article in Jakarta Globe on how a new mobile startup Ruma is helping to increase income for thousands of poor women in Indonesia through business transactions they are performing on their mobile (cell) phones. Ruma is creating a supplemental income opportunity for agents in rural districts of Indonesia using the mobile phone that they… Continue reading Increasing BOP income through mobile phones
After spending time in India and the Philippines over the past few months with some of the world’s most innovative and fast-growing microfinance organizations from around the globe, I have a few thoughts on the next phase of microfinance which we are about to see flourishing over the next 3-5 years. I will refer to… Continue reading Microfinance 3.0
Fast Company magazine writes an interesting article, Unplanned Obsolescence “exposing” the decreasing attractiveness of being a village “phone lady” in Bangladesh. FC is following up on a story they wrote almost 10 years ago when they first wrote about Grameen Phone, a wireless mobile service, and interviewed Laili Begum, the first woman to receive a… Continue reading Microfranchising opens new earning opportunities
One interesting (at least to me) emerging idea for defeating poverty is to make it easier for a poor person to start a very small (micro) business. Does microfinance have a limited market? Some of the critics of microfinance have argued that most humans (including the poor) don’t have what it takes to be an… Continue reading MicroFranchising — Another Income Generating Tool?
There is a major positive change starting to ripple through the microfinance industry … the trend towards running microfinance institutions (MFIs) as for-profit businesses rather than non-profit charities. Today, The Wall Street Journal ran a front page article on this trend highlighting a for-profit Indian MFI, SKS, which I have visited in Hyderabad last October.… Continue reading For-profit microfinance
Defeat Poverty 