From India Microfinance - Ujjivan Financial Services has entered agriculturally advanced Punjab to provide micro-credit to women of the state with the objective of reducing the economic disparities and to cover the areas which have remained deprived of access to financial services till date. Punjab has a large number of big cities & towns along... 

From SBWire - Social Investment Fund 2010 will provide capital to 20 MFIs across Latin America Global Partnerships (GP), a 16-year-old nonprofit that supports microfinance and other sustainable solutions to poverty, announced today that it closed its fourth social investment fund at $20 million. Over the next five years, Social Investment Fund 2010... 

From India Microfinance - SE Investments, a microfinance non banking finance company with operations in North India , yesterday announced that the United Bank of India (UBI), one of the company’s major credit providers, has sanctioned and disbursed financial facilities worth Rs 50 Crore. In an interaction with the media, Mr Sunil Agarwal – MD... 

MFTransparency Announcement - MFTransparency and The Africa Microfinance Network (AFMIN) today officially announced their partnership to promote pricing transparency in microfinance throughout Africa. AFMIN will support MFTransparency by encouraging its members to participate in the Transparent Pricing Initiative and MFTransparency will provide... 

By Andrea Lynett, NGO Pulse - With only five years remaining until governments are to meet the targets set out by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the sub-Saharan Africa region continues to have the highest poverty rates in the world, with millions of people living on less than US$1 per day. Certain countries, like Ghana, Cameroon and Uganda,... 

By Mark Napier, How we Made it in Africa - In an extract from his book Real Money, New Frontiers, Mark Napier looks at how Zambia’s MLife established its microinsurance business. Almost half of Zambia’s working population works in the informal sector in small and microbusinesses. In 2001, Peri-Urban Lusaka Small Enterprise (PULSE) Holdings,... 

By Shilpa Phadnis, Times of India - Fifty two-year-old Madanpal is a milk procurement supervisor at Ludhiana Milk Union. He maintains checks and balances at the local collection centre and settles accounts. But he also doubles as a part-time insurance agent, educating colleagues on the benefits of having a life cover. Like Madanpal, many grassroot... 

By Leyla Marrouk, Africa on the blog - Last month I was fortunate enough, through my work with Women’s World Banking in New York , to visit the headquarters of a Moroccan microfinance institution, Association Al Amana . What a wonderful time! It is incredibly inspiring to talk to people who truly make a difference, on a day to day basis, in the... 

By Fehmeen A. Khan, Fehmeen A. Khan is a young microfinance blogger at the Microfinance Hub Blog, and appears as a guest blogger at the RedCloud Blog.- Financial literacy is the new buzzword of the microfinance industry. This article looks at five justifications for this idea as well as the expected outcome of such campaigns. Five Needs for Financial... 

By Amaka Agwuegbo, Vanguard - Microfinance  operators who had their operating licenses revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have condemned the action, saying such moves would kill the economy. The CBN, last Friday, revoked the operating licenses of 224 MFBs due to their non-performing loans, resulting in high portfolio at risk (PAR), which...