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Three Pillars for Measuring Impact in Inclusive Financial Services: Apis Partners and Accion Frontier Investments Group publish a framework for impact investors
In seeking to ensure a social as well as financial return on their investments in inclusive financial services, Apis Partners and Accion Frontier Investments Group created a framework to capture these services' unique aspects of impact. This gave rise to three core categories which they believe any fund manager investing in inclusive financial services can use to measure impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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A smile boosts the chances of getting a microloan, say Stanford psychologists
Stanford psychologists found that applicants for microloans are more likely to win approval if the photograph they send along with the application evokes a positive emotional response.
- Categories
- Education
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India’s MFI credit bureaus comb client data to smooth microloans
Three years after India’s first credit bureau for microfinance institutions (MFIs) opened shop, teething troubles continue to prevent lenders and borrowers from making full use of it.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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PRESS RELEASE: Smart Campaign Now Serves More Than 20 Million Low-income Clients
Momentum for Smart Campaign Certification Accelerates; Six Million ‘Protected’ Clients Added in Last Six Months.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Can Microfinance Help Boost Sanitation Coverage?
The time when microfinance was seen as the miracle cure to lift people out of poverty is long gone. The funding crisis in India in 2010 and evidence of mixed impacts from microfinance have contributed to a greater understanding of both its strengths and weaknesses. While microfinance is usually associated with income generation, rather than taps and toilets, growing evidence shows that it could be a solution for funding sanitation facilities in developing countries.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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PRESS RELEASE: India’s Financial Inclusion Leader IFMR HoldingsRaises $25m from Accion, LeapFrog and Lok
IFMR Holdings, a leading financial inclusion platform in India, has announced that they have raised US $25 million in equity from Accion, a financial inclusion pioneer, LeapFrog Investments, a specialist investor in emerging-market financial services, and Lok Capital, an Indian impact investment firm.
- Source
- Accion
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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M-Pesa and the Rise of the Global Mobile Money Market
Most people probably don’t think of Kenya as an innovation and technology hub, but in 2007 it became the launching pad for M-Pesa, a transformativemobile phone-based platform for money transfer and financial services. Since then, M-Pesa has undergone explosive growth: in 2013, a staggering 43 percent of Kenya’s GDP flowed through M-Pesa, with over 237 million person-to-person transactions. M-Pesa is nearly ubiquitous in the daily lives of Kenyans due to a range of services that include money deposit and withdrawal, remittance delivery, bill payment, and microcredit provision.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Why Microfinance Loans Have Such High Rates
In recent years, microfinance—distributing small loans to the poor -- has been at the center of an intense debate about the ethics of charging low-income customers high interest rates and then making a profit from them.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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