SKS Microfinance Limited, the largest Micro Finance Institution in India, today announced that its public issue will open on July 28.

Probanx Information Systems specializes in development of software for the financial institutions, offering multi-currency and multi-lingual banking systems with a large variety of modules, based on the latest technologies. We install and support turn-key international Banking Software and Microfinance Software solutions for retail banks, commercial banks, Internet banks and microfinance banks.

Infosys provides a complete range of IT consulting outsourcing services based on strong domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers. Infosys' service offerings span business and technology consulting, application services, systems integration, product engineering, custom software development, maintenance, re-engineering independent testing and validation services, IT infrastructure services and business process outsourcing (BPO). Infosys is a leading global IT organization with over 40 offices and development centers in India, China, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, Canada and Japan.

TATA Consultancy Services Financial Solutions (TCSFS) is a global and innovative company with a strategic focus on the present and future requirements of financial institutions. TCSFS goal is to enable their clients to meet the business challenges of modern-day banking and to achieve and sustain a competitive edge. TATA Consultancy Services acquired the former TKS Group.

The second day of ‘Microfinance Cracking the Capital Market’ Conference began with an insightful perspective on future Institutional Investments in the Indian microfinance space. Victoria White, Vice-President and Director, India, ACCION and Alok Prasad, Country Manager-Microfinance, Citi India welcomed the audience with a brief remark on the need and future prospect of institutional investments which the industry requires.

Microfinance is going mainstream as international investors look to boost the value and the reach of small microlending institutions. As a result, the industry is likely to attract mainstream scrutiny from the press.

With hundreds of fledgling entrepreneurs ready to change the world and maybe make millions while they do it, the buzz around the microfinance industry looks a bit like the dot-com boom at the end of the ’90s.

What's the impact of microfinance? A question with 150 million answers, one for every client around the world who receives microfinance services.

Private equity investments have put a premium on the valuation of microfinance companies when maybe they should be giving them a discount. By Eric Bellman

Motivations and initiatives should not be judged on how much or how little they can do. These remain the single most visible sign of a society that is alive.

Helping women from poor households to establish small businesses is the daily work of the Timorese microfinance institution Tuba Rai Metin (TRM). Their belief is that the prosperity of Timor-Leste has to be built upon the prosperity of the most important structure in society, the family unit.

The global micro finance body set up by World Bank has elected India's Vijay Mahajan as Chairman of its Executive Committee.

Microfinance — making tiny loans to poor people or groups of poor people — has soared in India in the past few years. Before long, it could reach more people in India than the regular banking system.

This is an extraordinary story of women's empowerment in rural India. Women in Satara district in Maharashtra run a bank and a B-school successfully.

Offbeat financal avenues find buyers slowly but steadily. With the global meltdown behind, European debt crisis ahead, global economists are busy pondering new sectors like microfinance, carbon finance, water credit and so on to find hope for market expansion.

Even as financial inclusion emerges as one of the top goals of government and Reserve Bank of India, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), which are the pioneers of financial inclusion, are finding themselves in a bit of soup, strangely enough for fats growth and for big profits. So are MFIs doing too much too fast?

Sheetal Mehta is founder of Shanti Microfinance, which is a social enterprise charity that provides access to technology and capital for entrepreneurs in slums and villages in Gujarat, India.

A new microfinance bill that was recently introduced in the Indian Parliament would remove the cap on microloan interest rates. Although there would be no cap on interest rates, the regulatory body would “advise” microfinance institutions to keep rates low and would “closely monitor” them, according to government officials.

The Governor State Bank Syed Salim Raza said Islamic banking will be launched in microfinance sector.

Women’s empowerment is one of the subjects included in the bilateral discussions between India and the United States, said Andrew T. Simkin, U.S. Consul General in Chennai, here on Friday.

Kingsolver, the bestselling author writes of a visit to the rural countryside of Orissa in northeastern India, where she interacted with the Akandalamuni Women's Club, which has 15 members. "Like millions of women in South Asia, they started their own microcredit group. Attending twice-monthly meetings and putting two rupees per month (about four cents) into a joint savings account qualified them for small loans, collateralized by group guarantee. This year they borrowed enough to rent a five-acre plot for growing sugar cane, from which they share the proceeds."

India should work towards empowering women economically -- through microfinance programs -- and also encourage greater participation of women leaders in panchayats, or village councils, writes author Shoba Narayan in this opinion piece.

A fresher, integrated approach to workplace learning can have a positive role in India's ability to turn its unique demographics into a dividend writes Angie Taras

“IF WE stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognising them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.” That “simple proposition” begins a controversial new management book that seems destined to be read not just in boardrooms but also in government offices. “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Eradicating Poverty Through Profits” (Wharton School Publishing), is essentially a rallying cry for big business to put serving the world's 5 billion or so poorest people at the heart of their profit-making strategies.

An educational initiative between Rice University computer scientists and Indian educators will enable schools in rural India to be some of the first to benefit from Rice's revolutionary, low-energy computer chips. Rice's Krishna Palem, the inventor of the energy-stingy chips, said his team is creating a solar-powered electronic slate, or I-slate, an electronic version of the blackboard slates used by many Indian schoolchildren.