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Swiss bank for mega-rich advocates lending to poor, by Thomas Atkins
Credit Suisse, one of the world’s biggest banks for wealthy clients, on Tuesday said the business of microfinance -- providing loans as small as $50 to the poor -- will soon attract mainstream investors. The Swiss-based bank, which operates an investment fund that finances microcredit projects, said the microfinance market was growing 20-40 percent annually, thanks in part to its record of contributing to economic development in poorer nations. Microfinance is a high-growth ...
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- Reuters
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ICICI Bank to penetrate rural sector through mandis, kiosks
ICICI Bank is planning to set up mandi branches, kiosks, franchisees and partner microfinance institutions and non-government organisations to boost its rural finance business. In association with corporates, microfinance institutions and local authorities, the bank is developing supply-chain solutions in the agriculture sector. ICICI Bank has divided the rural market into R1, R2, R3 and R4 categories for identifying the rural markets. R1 and R2 represent the rich farmers, while R3 and...
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- Business Standard
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Company, NGO and UN development specialists meet at IBLF event
On 24th & 25th May 2005 over 70 senior representatives from global business, development agencies including the UN, and NGOs will come together for a unique event hosted by the IBLF in collaboration with UNDP and the UN Global Compact. The symposium, entitled ’Business and Development, Business models for meeting development challenges’ will see participants making firm recommendations over the role of business in development, particularly in relation to the five years old UN M...
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- IBLF
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Germany to fund Cambodia in promoting private sector development
A new program for promoting Cambodia`s private sector development was launched by Cambodia and Germany, German Embassy said here Friday. The program is designed to generate sustainable employment opportunities, improve competitiveness and productivity of Cambodian enterprises and contribute to a conducive business environment, the embassy said in a statement. It will also help with capacity building and training for enterprises, strengthening associations of the private business, crea...
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- AngolaPress
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ADB to provide $31 million loan for agribusiness project
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $31 million for ’Agribusiness Development project’ for promoting development of a competitive and sustainable agribusiness sector in Pakistan. The Agribusiness Development Project will establish market-based approach to agribusiness development and enhance technical and managerial capacity in the sub-sector. It will also dismantle barriers for new enterprises and promote expansion of existing ones into new markets, says a statement...
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- Business Recorder
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Light (and power) unto the nations, by Gali Wienreb and Hanan LifshitzThe
The environmental vision of Israeli start-up Solar Power includes cellular and solar networks in Third World countries. ?We decided to focus on environmentally friendly energy for mobile phones, and on hooking up regions that had no infrastructure,? Tamari relates. ?Actually, it overlaps our field, because there are many places today where cellular networks are deployed first, because there is no wireline telephone network there, and it?s probably no longer worthwhile deploying...
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- Globes
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Will ’Social Responsibility’Harm Business? by Alan Murray
Are the capitalists abandoning capitalism? Tomorrow, General Electric Co. -- icon of American business and the most widely held stock in the world -- will release its first-ever Citizenship Report , a 75-page bow to the bevy of nongovernmental organizations pushing for ever-more corporate social responsibility. The release comes just nine days after GE took the surpr...
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- The Wall Street Journal
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A poor opportunity, by Kanika Datta
Ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, Indian policy makers and leftist thinkers appear to have rediscovered the Poor.? So, coincidentally, has big business, thanks to a handy contrarian discovery made by management guru C K Prahalad of a ?fortune at the bottom of the pyramid?. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I would say that Prahalad?s theory is almost as chimeral as the UPA government?s grand employment guarantee scheme.? Unlike the ...
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- Business Standard
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