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Mexican microfinance institution Compartamos breaks silence since IPO
Breaking their silence since their April 2007 IPO, Carlos Danel and Carlos Labarthe, co-founders of Compartamos, the leading Mexican microfinance bank, publish an excerpt of their newly released Letter to Our Peers in the latest issue of the magazine Microfinance Insights. The authors, who have been criticized by members of the microfinance community since their IPO brought in extraordinary returns, acknowledge in the letter that social and economic goals can reinforce each other,...
- Region
- Latin America
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Doing good by doing very nicely indeed
For years Muhammad Yunus reigned as the public face of microfinance. It seemed only right when, in 2006, the Bangladeshi economist cum social entrepreneur and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel peace prize for a micro-lending revolution that has helped millions to earn their own way out of poverty. Yet for the past year or so, microfinance has had another public face, one that troubles people like Mr Yunus. CompartamosBanco argues that the best way for microfinance to help the poor is for it t...
- Region
- Latin America
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Latin America’s Poor Provide Rich Pickings
Peruvian housewife Genoveva Airaconda spends her days visiting neighbours around her shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. It might not sound like a profitable pastime, but her visits provide a steady income for her family as well as adding to the bottom line of Swiss-based multinational Nestl?. Airaconda is one of hundreds of door-to-door salespeople that the food giant has recently employed to sell their nutritional products in the Peruvian capital. By usi...
- Source
- The Guardian
- Region
- Latin America
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Latin America: Social innovation ? Giving the majority a stake
Latin American companies are getting to grips with ?bottom of the pyramid? business. Illiterate residents across rural Bolivia have never heard of the academic CK Prahalad. And until recently many had never used modern banking services. They still don?t know who Prahalad is, but now they are withdrawing money from a voice-recognition ATM developed by Prodem, a microfinance institution. In addition to understanding verbal instructions, the specially adapted bank ...
- Region
- Latin America
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Grupo Salinas Founder and Chairman Ricardo B. Salinas Addresses FIU Highilighting Opportunities at t
With a presentation entitled Selling to the Poor: a 100-Year Success Story, Mr. Salinas shared some of the entrepreneurial and social development opportunities of businesses that focus on low-income consumers, a market referred to by University of Michigan Business School Professor C.K. Prahalad as the Bottom of the Pyramid. The best solution to the problem of poverty is to create wealth, argued Mr. Salinas. We need to look for new entrepre...
- Region
- Latin America
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Hacer negocio con los pobres
Suena pol?ticamente incorrecto, pero quiz? la manera m?s efectiva de luchar contra la pobreza sea convertir en ?clientes’ a los m?s desfavorecidos. Por su parte, las empresas que lo consigan descubrir?n un mercado de 4.000 millones de personas. En tiempos de globalizaci?n, no hay pieza m?s codiciada por una multinacional que descubrir un nuevo mercado. Para muchos, es posible que no haya que rebuscar tanto para encontrarlo y, de paso, ayudar en la lucha contra la pobreza y el s...
- Region
- Latin America
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En el Punto de Mira: Somos Pobres, Pero Somos Muchos
Spanish language magazine Compromiso Empresarial (Oct. 2007) has two pieces specifically focused on the importance and growth of BOP markets worldwide: En el Punto de Mira: Somos Pobres, Pero Somos Muchos (Spanish only) Entrevista con Rob Katz (Spanish only) See the attached files, or sign up to ...
- Region
- Latin America
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Business-friendly Reforms Best Way to Advance Latin America Economies
What irony! When it comes to cutting government red tape and creating a pro-business atmosphere, communist-ruled China, Vietnam and former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe are moving much faster than most of Latin America. A new World Bank report - Doing Business 2008 - which looks at the ease of doing business in 178 countries around the world, says countries such as Croatia, Georgia, Estonia, China, India and Egypt were the most aggressive last year in adopting pro-business ref...
- Region
- Latin America
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