By Tina A. Hassan, Sunday Trust – Low awareness among operators of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the country has hindered patronage of the insurance sector. Sunday Trust investigations revealed that instead of patronizing insurance companies to redeem property and lives, there is a preference for the microfinance sector. Business... 

Vanguard – The Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) on Thursday in Abuja said stakeholders in the microfinance sub-sector must partner to grow the industry. Dr Kingsley Moughalu, Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, said this at a forum which had as theme: ” Building Successful Multi-Stakeholders” Partnership in Micro-finance.” sanusi “The... 

By LEE C. CHIPONGIAN – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is preparing to review several regulatory policies to assist rural banks maintain capital health and increase loan portfolios. “All these policies are in place and the opportunities (are) well within reach,” BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. told members of the Rural Bankers Association... 

By Hope Moses-Ashike, Businessday – A lot of factors which include inability of microfinance banks to enlighten low income earners on their operations and poor corporate governance among others could be attributed to majority of the populace not having access to credit facilities. From World Bank’s report of 2008, Nigeria has nearly 70... 

Thanks to tighter credit standards and stricter regulatory scrutiny, many small businesses have found it difficult—or impossible—to get a bank loan. A federal proposal to launch a $30 billion fund aimed at boosting lending could help. But, in the meantime, a growing number of companies that might not have been able to get a loan from a traditional... 

Microfinance has been talk of the town since last decade or so. Islamic microfinance is recently entered in market and since then been in experiment mode with varied degrees of success. Islamic Microfinance is based on concept of prohibition of interest and profit and loss sharing. Interest based microfinance has been a success in societies with largely... 

INDIA’S largest microfinance lender, SKS Microfinance, hopes to raise US$250 million in July through an initial public offering (IPO) – the first microfinance institution (MFI) in the country to go for a listing. Not only does SKS’s impending IPO spotlight India’s rapidly expanding microfinance industry, it also revives the debate about how... 

NO matter how broke you are, just walk into a microfinance institution and all your financial problems would be solved within a very short space of time. This is the belief that many poor Zimbabweans have about microfinance institutions and loan sharks. Well, it sounds as easy as that. And most of Zimbabwe’s poor, hoping to fast track their way out... 

Unitus Equity Fund, L.P. (UEF), a private equity fund formed by Unitus, a nonprofit organization which creates innovative solutions to global poverty, and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) today announced they will invest in Ujjivan Financial Services Private Limited, a newly-formed microfinance institution (MFI) with a vision to reach... 

by Abhay, India Microfinance – Ujjivan Financial Services, a microfinance institution (MFI), recorded its first year of profitable operations with a post-tax profit of Rs.9.63 Crores in the financial year 2009-10. Ujjivan has wiped out the accumulated losses of Rs.5.85 Crores of the first four years of start-up operations and transferred Rs.1.9...