Microfinance Staff Seek Greener Pastures
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Mumbai: SKS Microfinance Ltd, India’s largest and only listed microfinance institution (MFI), has seen an exodus of at least 3,000 of its employees in the three months ended 31 March, even as the lender of tiny loans to the poor grapples with large-scale defaults from borrowers in Andhra Pradesh and a rapidly eroding market value.
The 12% decline in its employee strength for the March quarter is the sharpest fall the company has seen.
SKS is not the only micro-credit lender that has seen people leave after a crisis broke in Indian microfinance in October. Other Andhra Pradesh-based MFIs have also lost key executives who had been drawn to the sector and away from high-paying jobs with multinational firms, but whose aspirations were dealt a blow by the not-so-conducive environment for microfinance in the southern state that accounts for a quarter of the total microfinance business in India.
