Focus areas
1.Institution Building, Capacity Building, Monitoring and Assessment Services for Micro Finance Institutions, Community Based Organizations (Federations, Cooperatives, Producer Companies), Enterprises. 2.Supporting Partner Organizations that use innovative ways of poverty alleviation, focusing on enhancing and introducing sustainable livelihood activities for women. 3.Support for Reducing the Vulnerability of Low Income Households. This includes providing financial and technical assistance to POs for on-lending to poor women clients, to enable them to get better access to: Solar Energy Light systems, Water and Sanitation Facilities, Education Loans, Health and Hygiene Awareness, Financial Literacy
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, and a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled nearly US$40 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent. The first economist who had invented the idea of micro loans was The Very Reverend Jonathan Swift in the 1720’s. Microcredit is part of microfinance, which provides a wider range of financial services, especially savings accounts, to the poor. Modern microcredit is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank founded in Bangladesh in 1983 by their current Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus. Many traditional banks subsequently introduced microcredit despite initial misgivings. The United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. As of 2012, microcredit is widely used in developing countries and is presented as having "enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation." Microcredit is a tool that can possibly be helpful to reduce feminization of poverty in developing countries.
Microfinance consists of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution.
Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) is a microfinancing agency of the Aga Khan Development Network.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is an All India Financial Institution (AIFI) and an apex Supervisory Body for overall supervision of Regional Rural Banks, State Cooperative Banks and District Central Cooperative Banks in India. It was established under the NABARD Act 1981 passed by the Parliament of India. It is fully owned by Government of India and functions under the Department of Financial Services (DFS) under the Ministry of Finance.
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is the apex regulatory body for overall licensing and regulation of micro, small and medium enterprise finance companies in India. It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance, Government of India headquartered at Lucknow and having its offices all over the country.
Micro financing in Tanzania started in 1995 with SACCOS and NGOs. It has since then contributed to the increasing success of international micro financing. Microfinance stills remains a relatively new in Tanzania since it has not penetrated yet. Since 1995, microfinance has been linked to poverty alleviation programs and women. The government made efforts to ensure commercial banks have continued to provide financial support to the small entrepreneurial business. However a microfinance National Policy was implemented in 2002 to encourage and support microfinances in the country. Since the implementation, micro financing was officially launched and recognized as a poverty alleviation tool. Due to its increase exposure and use in the nation, commercial banks have developed interests in to offer microfinance. There are various microfinance banks that functions as supporting institutions in the country that usually provide microfinance services. These may include the CRDB, National Microfinance Bank, and AKIBA. However there are also other few banks that are concerned with micro financing in Tanzania such as the PRIDE and SEDA, Tanzania Postal Bank and FINCA. Community and small banks have also expressed interest in the same including the NGOs and other non-profit organizations.
Village banking is a microcredit and saving methodology whereby financial services are administered locally in a community bank rather than in a centralized commercial bank. Village banking has its roots in ancient cultures and was most recently adopted for use by micro-finance institutions (MFIs) as a way to control costs. Early village banking methods were innovated by Grameen Bank and then later developed by groups such as FINCA International founder John Hatch. Among US-based non-profit agencies there are at least 31 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that have collectively created over 800 village banking programs in at least 90 countries. And in many of these countries there are host-country MFIs—sometimes dozens—that are village banking practitioners as well. The latest developments globally can be seen in Southeast Asia, where digitization is pacing fast to reach rural areas with hybrid on- and offline solutions.
BASIX is an institution concerning the promotion of livelihood established in 1996 in India. It is headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. Around 2010 it's NBFC arm raised funds from private equity investors and declared bankruptcy after couple of years.
Bharat Financial Inclusion Limited or BFIL is a banking & finance company (NBFC), licensed by the Reserve Bank of India. It was founded in 1997 by Vikram Akula, who served as its executive chair until working. The company's mission is to provide financial services to the poor under the premise that providing financial service to poor borrowers helps to alleviate poverty. In 2011, the company operated across 11 Indian states.
Vijay Mahajan is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies.
A self-help group is a financial intermediary committee usually composed of 12 to 25 local women between the ages of 18 and 50. Most self-help groups are in India, though they can be found in other countries, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. A SHG is generally a group of people who work on daily wages who form a loose grouping or union. Money is collected from those who are able to donate and given to members in need.
Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) is a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 of India, engaged in the business of loans and advances, acquisition of shares, stock, bonds, hire-purchase insurance business or chit-fund business, but does not include any institution whose principal business is that of agriculture, industrial activity, purchase or sale of any goods or providing any services and sale/purchase/construction of immovable property.
Fonkoze is Haiti's largest microfinance institution serving the poor in Haiti, with 44 branches located throughout the country.
Women's World Banking is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to women's economic empowerment through financial inclusion.
Poverty in Sri Lanka is 24.8% of the population as of July 1, 2024 Sri Lanka's life expectancy and literacy rate are nearly on par with those of developed countries, and even top the rankings for the South Asia region. While all these indicate that Sri Lanka should be experiencing a high standard of living, until recently it has only ranked in the medium category of the Human Development Index (HDI). This is despite the fact that Sri Lanka has been experiencing moderate growth in its GDP averaging 5.5 per annum between 2006 and 2009. One of the reasons is due to its relatively low GDP per capital;. The Sri Lankan government has been successful in reducing poverty from 15.2% on 2006 to 8.9% in 2010, urban poverty was reduced from 6.7 to 5.3% while rural poverty was reduced from 15.7 to 9.5%, and the nation has made significant progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.
The SIDBI foundation for Microcredit (SFMC) is an Indian financial division that provides bulk loans to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India. It is a division of Indian governments Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). In practice, it acts as an oversight over MFIs which are the intermediaries between the retail borrowers consisting of poor people and individual borrowers living in rural areas or urban slums and the public sector development finance institutions.
Bandhan Bank Ltd. is a banking and financial services company, headquartered in Kolkata.
Dr. Sailendra Narain is a development finance specialist born in Nawadah, Bihar Province, India. For over 40 years, Narain has been a pioneer in developing the global SME sector. His specialities include: designing policy frameworks for SME Growth, establishing SME financing programs in banking and development financial institutions, and capacity building for SMEs with a focus on Entrepreneurship.
Microfinance in Kenya consists of microfinance facilities and regulations in Kenya which has been developing since the mid 1990s. Legislation was passed in 2006 with the Micro Finance Act which became active in 2008. By 2010 there were more than twenty large micro finance institutions in Kenya, which provided US $1.5 billion to approximately 1.5 million active borrowers. With over 100,000 clients, Equity Bank Kenya had the largest share of business loans representing market share of 73.50% followed by Kenya Women Microfinance Bank with 12.06%. Most microfinance firms as in other countries have eligibility criteria which may include gender, age, a valid Kenyan ID, a business, an ability to repay the loan and be a customer of the institution.
Kashf Foundation is a non-profit organization, founded by Roshaneh Zafar in 1996. Kashf is regarded as the first microfinance institution (MFI) of Pakistan that uses village banking methodology in microcredit to alleviate poverty by providing affordable financial and non-financial services to low income households - particularly for women, to build their capacity and enhance their economic role. With headquarters in Lahore, Punjab, Kashf have regional offices in five major cities and over 200 branches across Pakistan.
