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Gregory F. Casagrande is an American businessman and the founder of South Pacific Business Development Microfinance Network, the leading microfinance institution in the Pacific Islands region. He is also the founder of MicroDreams, a microfinance acceleration fund working with emerging microfinance institutions in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific and Transformative Ventures LLC, a Microfinance advisory company.
Casagrande graduated from Wardlaw-Hartridge School in 1981. He received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and Marketing from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, an MS in Accounting from New York University Stern School of Business as well as a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Economics with high distinction from Colgate University. Casagrande is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
He recorded significant achievement with Ford Motor Company, Mazda Motor Company and Coopers & Lybrand in product development, manufacturing, marketing and financial management positions. He led teams in the United States, Japan and Europe. [ citation needed ]
Casagrande serves as a director on the boards of the International Association of Microfinance Investors (of New York), Microfinance Pasifika (of Fiji) and Planet Finance (of Paris), and as a fund advisor to Plebys – a for-profit “Base of the Pyramyd” investment fund based in Irvine, California. He also served on the United Nations Board of Patrons for its International Year of Microcredit – 2005. Casagrande is a frequent speaker at conferences and universities around the world on the topics of poverty eradication, building inclusive financial sectors, building sustainable micro-enterprise development organizations, financing Microfinance institutions and social entrepreneurship.
In addition to his micro-finance activities, Casagrande promotes hi-tech entrepreneurship. He is a founding director of the Ice Angels, Australasia's largest angel investor group and serves as Chairman of three New Zealand software firms: Biomatters Ltd, Calcium Solutions Ltd and English-To-Go Ltd.
Casagrande was awarded the International Year of Microcredit in 2005. [1] In 2010, Casagrande was awarded the Global Social Innovator Award. [2] Greg has been invited as a guest on several occasions for Fijian, Samoan and New Zealand television stations. [3] [4] [5]
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or 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 US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.
Microfinance is a category 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.
Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Accion is an international nonprofit. Founded as a community development initiative serving the poor in Venezuela, Accion is known as a pioneer in the fields of microfinance and fintech impact investing.
A micro-enterprise is generally defined as a small business employing nine people or fewer, and having a balance sheet or turnover less than a certain amount. The terms microenterprise and microbusiness have the same meaning, though traditionally when referring to a small business financed by microcredit the term microenterprise is often used. Similarly, when referring to a small, usually legal business that is not financed by microcredit, the term microbusiness is often used. Internationally, most microenterprises are family businesses employing one or two persons. Most microenterprise owners are primarily interested in earning a living to support themselves and their families. They only grow the business when something in their lives changes and they need to generate a larger income. According to information found on the Census.gov website, microenterprises make up 95% of the 28 million US companies tracked by the census.
Vikram Akula is an American banker and the founder of SKS Microfinance, a micro finance company and former chairperson of Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd. SKS was an organization that offered microloans and insurance to poor women in India. He stepped down as SKS Chairperson in November 2011 and became Chairperson Emeritus.
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. Its purpose is to provide refinance facilities to banks and financial institutions and engage in term lending and working capital finance to industries, and serves as the principal financial institution in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector. SIDBI also coordinates the functions of institutions engaged in similar activities. It was established on 2 April 1990, through an Act of Parliament. It is headquartered in Lucknow. SIDBI is one of the four All India Financial Institutions regulated and supervised by the Reserve Bank of India; other three are India Exim Bank, NABARD and NHB. But recently NHB came under government control by taking more than 51% stake. They play a statutory role in the financial markets through credit extension and refinancing operation activities and cater to the long-term financing needs of the industrial sector.
Kiva is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, that claims to allow people to lend money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in 77 countries. Kiva's mission is "to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive." They have been accused of deceptive business practices, misleading donors into believing their funds would be used for specific individuals and misrepresenting other aspects of their operations.
LAPO is a Nigerian organisation with a microfinance bank dedicated to self-employment through microfinance and an NGO, a non-governmental, non-profit community development organization focused on the empowerment of the poor and the vulnerable.
The Grameen family of organizations has grown beyond Grameen Bank into a multi-faceted group of profitable and non-profit ventures, established by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winning founder of Grameen Bank. Most of these organizations have central offices at the Grameen Bank Complex in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it started attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.
Microfranchising is a business model that applies elements and concepts of traditional franchising to small businesses in the developing world. It refers to the systemization and replication of micro-enterprises. Microfranchising is broadly defined as small businesses that can easily be replicated by following proven marketing and operational concepts.
Microcredit for water supply and sanitation is the application of microcredit to provide loans to small enterprises and households in order to increase access to an improved water source and sanitation in developing countries. While most investments in water supply and sanitation infrastructure are financed by the public sector, investment levels have been insufficient to achieve universal access. Commercial credit to public utilities was limited by low tariffs and insufficient cost-recovery. Microcredits are a complementary or alternative approach to allow the poor to gain access to water supply and sanitation.
Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt is a Mongolian businessman, public figure, and former Vice Minister of Finance of Mongolia. According to Richtopia, Ganhuyag's was among the top 2500 CEOs in the world in 2015.
The MicroDreams Foundation is a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Gregory Casagrande in 2002 as a microfinance accelerator that helps small, growing micro-enterprise development organizations reach financial self-sufficiency. Over the past nine years, MicroDreams has provided substantial support to the SPBD microfinance network in all four of its branches in and has helped to scale up other young emerging partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. MicroDreams uses loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance to help provide meaningful economic opportunity to the poorest members of society.
South Pacific Business Development is a network of Microfinance institutions working in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga to eliminate poverty. Its aim is to provide women in poor rural villages with the opportunity to start, grow and maintain sustainable income-generating micro-enterprises, build assets through saving as well as finance home improvements and childhood education. SPBD also provides its clients with a range of training, financial services and ongoing motivation so that they can climb permanently out of poverty.
The impact of microcredit is a subject of much controversy. Proponents state that it reduces poverty through higher employment and higher incomes. This is expected to lead to improved nutrition and improved education of the borrowers' children. Some argue that microcredit empowers women. In the US and Canada, it is argued that microcredit helps recipients to graduate from welfare programs. Critics say that microcredit has not increased incomes, but has driven poor households into a debt trap, in some cases even leading to suicide. They add that the money from loans is often used for durable consumer goods or consumption instead of being used for productive investments, that it fails to empower women, and that it has not improved health or education.
Trustco Bank Namibia limited, formerly the FIDES Bank Namibia, is a commercial bank in Namibia owned by Trustco Group Holdings. Its main commercial activity is to provide microfinancing services.
Gray Matters Capital is an impact investing foundation founded by Bob Pattillo. Its mission is to achieve "An education leading to a purpose filled life for 100, Million Women by 2036." GMC is based in Atlanta, Georgia with global offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Bangalore, India. The scale and the use of business practices with social enterprises makes it one of the leaders in impact investing.
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 has regional offices in five major cities and over 200 branches across the Pakistan.
Village Financial Services Ltd (VFS), headquartered in Kolkata, was incorporated on 28 June 1994, as a private limited company over a decade before it got its present name.
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