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
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
Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus (see my previous post on Priorities for helping the world’s poor), posted an OpEd in today’s WSJ entitled “The View from Vanuatu on Climate Change“. Vanuatu politicians have been some of the most vocal proponents of carbon cuts to prevent global warming destructive impacts on his country. Rather than… Continue reading What poor people really want
Creating a World Without Poverty: How Social Businesses Can Transform Our Lives by Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has recently released his second book, Creating a World Without Poverty. The centerpiece of this book is Yunus proposal for a new kind of institution called a “social business” which is a for-profit… Continue reading Creating a World Without Poverty book review
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus Yunus is probably the most well-known microfinance practitioner having started The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in the 1970’s and led it ever since to its current state where it serves millions of micro-entrepreneurial women across Bangladesh and, through replication, in many… Continue reading Banker to the Poor book review
Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus’s Micro-Lending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago by Alex Counts Counts heads up Grameen Foundation USA, the non-profit extension of The Grameen Bank – one of the first, large-scale successful microfinance banks based in Bangladesh. Counts shares the story of The Grameen Bank from its early inception… Continue reading Give Us Credit book review
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