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What’s Ailing Sri Lanka’s Microfinance Industry – And Could Fintech Provide a Solution?
In Sri Lanka, microfinance interest rates can be as high as 72 percent – outpacing even loan sharks, whose rates average around 40 percent. This often traps clients in severe debt and perpetuates cycles of poverty – while MFIs themselves often enjoy high profits, low expenses and lack of competitive pressure. Suthaharan Perampalam and Mithula Guganeshan of Sparkwinn explore the potential of fintech (and better regulations) in changing this dynamic.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Social enterprise Pollinate Energy has provided 20,000 urban poor families with affordable, green energy
In 2012, six young Australians — Jamie Chivers, Monique Alfris, Ben Merven, Katerina Kimmorley, Emma Colenbrander, and Alexie Seller — came together to see if they could find a way for children living in a slum in North Bengaluru, to have light to study.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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How microcredit can help poor countries after natural disasters
BOTH, in different ways, worry about liquidity. And global warming may, indeed, be bringing meteorologists and financiers together. On January 18th, VisionFund, a microlending charity, and Global Parametrics, a venture that crunches climate and seismic data, launched what they billed as the “world’s largest non-governmental climate-insurance programme”. The scheme will offer microfinance to about 4m people across six countries in Asia and Africa affected by climate-change-related calamities.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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Grameen America Celebrates 10 Years of Empowering Women through Microfinance as it Announces Foray into Impact Investing
Previously, Grameen America had been funded largely by traditional philanthropy and concessionary capital from foundations, charitable organizations, individual investors, and commercial lenders. The organization’s adoption of impact investing as an additional means of funding comes at a time when impact investing—defined by the Global Impact Investing Network as “investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return”—is on the rise.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- North America
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Does Digital Finance Really Address Low-Income Customers’ Needs?
Digital financial services are proliferating across the developing world, yet providers are having trouble coming up with products that meet low-income customers where they live. For instance, for a rural customer, how can a stagnant digital savings account compete with a productive egg-laying hen? Maha Khan and Annabel Schiff, representing the newly formed Mastercard Foundation Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa, unveil new research exploring how digital financial services can meet people's needs alongside more traditional services.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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How Impact Investing is Advancing Affordable Housing
For millions of people, especially for the 13.2 million who have worked with the organization to build new or updated homes, Habitat for Humanity is a household name. But many don't realize that the international charity that put “sweat equity” on the map is also pioneering a different approach: A pair of funds that invest in businesses that advance affordable housing via financial products and services. Jyoti Patel, global director-capital markets at Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, discusses the funds and their wide-ranging impact.
- Categories
- Investing
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Selling Without Selling Out: How to Avoid Harmful Sales Tactics in Financial Inclusion
You are probably bombarded with offers for useless products on a daily basis, with little consequence other than mild annoyance. But what if you were living at the BoP and the product being offered were at best useless, and at worst likely to undermine your economic future? That's the case for many financial services clients in emerging markets, says Barbara Magnoni of EA Consultants. She explores responsible sales tactics that providers can use to avoid doing more harm than good.
- Categories
- Finance
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Mastercard’s New Platform Helps Kenyan Micromerchants Get Credit–And Restock Faster
Without a financial history, small shop owners struggle to access loans. A new project from Mastercard helps them build up a track record of payments through digitizing their orders from local wholesalers.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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