Microfinance is a term for the practice of providing financial services, such as microcredit, microsavings or microinsurance to poor people. By helping them to accumulate usably large sums of money, this expands their choices and reduces the risks they face. Suggested by the name, most transactions involve small amounts of money, frequently less than US$100.
Microfinance - includes savings accounts, and other functions beyond just credit microcredit - only credit
The two distinct fields of microcredit and Microfinance are hot right now, as investors seek ways to not only find attractive returns, but to also invest in projects with unique social appeal. Seeking economic development of some of the poorest regions on earth, this movement was initially brought to the world stage by the incredible efforts of such groups as the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and Professor Prahalad of the University of Michigan. Since then, there has been a boom in the credit markets to service the bottom of the pyramid marketing, as banks, individuals and commercial stores have collectively realized the value that can be obtained by extending credit to the emerging consumer classes. In response, we are seeing how the new opportunities with consumers of low income is transforming commodity markets around the world, as projects such as the Bolsa Familia in Brazil spur a whole generation of buyers to seek new automobiles, washing machines, etc. See our discussion on the Rise of purchasing power in emerging markets
The origin of microfinance is often dated as late as the 1970s. Only then, it is often argued, did any programs pass two key tests:
Recent evidence gathered by Timothy Guinnane, an economic historian at Yale, raises questions about this view. Guinnane demonstrates that the success of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen's village banking movement in Germany, which began in 1864 and reached 2 million rural farmers by 1901, resulted in large part from its ability to pass both these tests.
Guinnane shows how the village-based bonds of association of these early credit unions gave them both the information and enforcement advantages needed to make loans to people who were both too poor and too remote to access bank loans. Raiffeisen was moved to action by the poverty of the recently freed serfs, and by the degree of exploitation they faced from local moneylenders.
In the 1970s, a new wave of microfinance initiatives introduced many new innovations into the sector. Solidarity lending emerged as a distinctive new methodology, made famous by Dr. Muhammad Yunus at Grameen Bank.
The first fully-incorporated microfinance and community development bank was ShoreBank, founded in 1973 in Chicago.
Today, microfinance plays a major role in the development of many African, Asian, and Latin American nations. Its impact is substantial enough to have warranted acknowledgment by the United Nations who declared 2005 The international year of microfinance, reminding people that millions worldwide benefit from microfinance activities.
There is, however, criticism towards microfinance institutions. In 2001, a Wall Street Journal article raised questions about the Grameen Bank, including repayment rate, collection methods and questionable accounting practices.
On a larger scale, some argue that an overemphasis on microfinance to combat poverty will lead to a reduction of other assistance to the poor, such as government welfare.
Research on the actual effectiveness of microfinance as a tool for economic development remains slim, in part owing to the difficulty in monitoring and measuring this impact. Questions have arisen regarding whether microfinance can ever be as important a tool for poverty alleviation as its proponents and practitioners would submit
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