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Svasti Microfinance Raises $4.2 Million
Svasti Microfinance Private Limited (Svasti), an RBI Licensed MFI, has raised a total of INR 310 million from its existing investors Adar Poonawalla, Nordic Microfinance Initiative (NMI) and Rajiv Dadlani Group.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Achieving an Equitable COVID-19 Recovery Through Safe Housing: Why it’s Time for Financial Institutions to Step Up
Over 1.5 billion people around the world live in crowded housing with limited sanitary amenities — and during COVID-19, these households are at a particularly high risk of contracting or spreading the virus. Patrick McAllister explains how private-sector financial institutions can play a critical role in achieving equitable social and economic COVID-19 recovery by supporting home-related financing for low-income essential workers.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Better Loans for Better Homes: A New Assessment Tool Helps Microfinance Institutions Increase Their Housing Impact
Most housing in developing countries is self-built and incremental, and these homeowners frequently turn to microfinance institutions (MFIs) to finance it. But according to Naeem Razwani and Jitendra Balanirom of Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and Olivia Nielsen of Miyamoto International, this type of construction process can lead to severe quality and structural issues – while also increasing the lending risk for MFIs. They discuss how a new assessment tool can help these lenders understand and optimize the impact of their home loans to better meet the needs of this market.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Cambodia Microfinance Association Members Have Restructured $1.4 Billion in Loans During the Pandemic
Financial institutions that are members of the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) restructured some $1.397 billion in loans for 289,422 borrowers as of February 28 since the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) on March 27 issued a circular on loan restructuring during Covid-19, according to CMA.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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An Ironic Impact of COVID-19: Will the Pandemic Put Digital Health (Finally) on the Path to Reducing Health Inequalities at Scale in Emerging Markets?
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a digital health revolution, and Michal Matul and Niti Pall at AXA Emerging Customers say these shifts could help close the healthcare access gap in emerging markets. Based on AXA's work bundling digital health services into its inclusive insurance products across nine countries, they share key lessons on how telemedicine can sustain this momentum and become a viable option for eliminating health inequalities over the long term.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Technology
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Analysis: India’s Agrarian Catastrophe and Farmers’ Rebellion
The origins of the farmer protests are rooted in the economic liberalisation of the 1990s, which pushed the agriculture sector into crisis, causing an epidemic of farmer suicides.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Land Bank of the Philippines Lends Over $143 Million to MSMEs and Co-Ops for COVID-19
The Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) has approved loans totaling P6.95 billion for 227 borrowers composed mostly of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and cooperatives that are affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Transforming Microcredit After COVID-19: Why ‘Building Back Better’ Will Require a Radical Reboot of Local Financial Systems in the Global South
Microcredit advocates have expressed the expectation that the industry can play a major role in economic and social recovery in the Global South after the COVID-19 pandemic. But economist Milford Bateman argues that shifting these micro-lending programs into community-owned financial institutions would make a more substantial impact. He shares a roadmap for empowering community-focused economies, and explores how a plan modeled after elements of the U.S.'s New Deal could transform local finance.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance