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Helping Microfinance Clients to Save: Are Incentives a Solution?
La Ceiba is a microfinance institution that serves low-income clients in rural Honduras, where the combination of distance, cost and knowledge gaps discourages clients from opening and maintaining a savings account. The MFI decided to leverage small incentives and special training to address those challenges; here's how they did it and what they learned along the way.
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- Uncategorized
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A Tale of Four IPOs: Is Public Investment in Microfinance Becoming OK Again?
Initial public offerings have long been a controversial topic in microfinance, and rightly so. The early IPOs of Compartamos and SKS Microfinance made a lot of money for investors and turbocharged the sector's growth, but also sparked hyper commercialization and debt crises that rocked the industry. But last year, two Indian MFIs had successful IPOs that have garnered a much more positive reception. We spoke with Daniel Rozas of the European Microfinance Platform and Anna Kanze of Grassroots Capital Management about how these four offerings differed, and what they could mean for the future of public investment in microfinance, in this podcast.
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- Investing
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Microfinance for Refugee Populations: What We’ve Learned and Where to Go Next
Currently, 21.3 million people are registered with United Nations agencies as refugees, and their financial inclusion has become a matter of importance and urgency. The Social Performance Task Force has been working to identify the refugees' needs and recently compiled some guidelines, “Serving Refugee Populations: The Next Financial Inclusion Frontier,” for financial service providers.
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- Finance
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TODAY at 10:00 AM EST: Twitter Chat on IPOs in Microfinance – Join at #MFICHAT
NextBillion is excited to announce our first-ever Twitter chat, which will take place at 10:00 AM EST on Jan. 30. The topic, Initial Public Offerings in microfinance, tends to inspire heated opinions, so the chat will follow a quasi-debate format, with Anna Kanze of Grassroots Capital Management, Daniel Rozas of the European Microfinance Platform, and Chuck Waterfield, formerly of MicroFinance Transparency, providing contrasting views. You can follow the conversation at #MFICHAT.
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- Investing
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MobileODT’s Goal: Making Cervical Cancer Screening Available to Every Woman, Everywhere – at a Profit
Cervical cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, but most of those deaths could be prevented through early detection. MobileODT has developed a low-cost colposcope that uses smartphones to replace more complex and expensive cervical screening systems. Here, CEO and cofounder Ariel Beery talks his company's plans to reach billions of people in both developed and developing countries.
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- Health Care
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Social Business Roundup: An SDG Lovefest at Davos, a New Rival for M-Pesa and a Really Big Direct Investment Fund
Has the World Economic Forum in Davos lost its relevance? Not to the folks gathered there this week who were knee-deep in talk about sustainable investing and social enterprise. Those discussions are only the start of a jam-packed Roundup this week. There's also a new mobile platform by MasterCard that could rival M-Pesa in Kenya, plans for a $2 billion direct investment fund, and plenty more ...
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- Agriculture, Health Care
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Sorry, ‘Feel Good’ Investors: Deep Impact Requires Concessions
There's a big crowd of investors on the side of the return continuum seeking a feel-good, low-risk way of earning an invitation to speak at the next GIIN or SOCAP, according to Greg Neichin and Diane Isenberg of Ceniarth. There are far fewer willing to make the necessary and realistic concessions required to generate impact in the most underserved places in the world.
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- Investing
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Is Microcredit a Vaccine or an Antibiotic?
In his third post in a series, Timothy Ogden asks if microcredit is a vaccine or an antibiotic. In other words, does it work best when delivered at the right dose and at the right moment, or when it's made available to an entire population? Thinking through that frame, he believes, can help social investors clarify their theory of change and guide what areas of microcredit innovation to invest in.
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