Welcome to a new year and a new decade … both promise to be exciting. 2010 will see the first Indian MFI IPO – probably of SKS – the consequences for the industry are likely to be enormous. The realisation of large-scale profits “build on the back of India’s poor” by foreign private equity investors is unlikely to be seen favourably by the Government or Reserve Bank of India. Many donor agencies which previously supported SKS and others are already reviewing their approaches in the light of the growing single focus on profitability. So in 2010 in India, in particular, expect what the Chinese would call “interesting times”! The decade will also see huge changes in delivery channels (and hopefully the range of products available to the poor). Most participants at the recent MicroSave M-banking Dialogue 2009 concluded that m-banking would have made significant impact on financial services for the low income market within 5-7 years.
On Risk Management With the rapid growth of MFIs, the range of risks has widened. MicroSave is thus working on updating its existing toolkit on Risk Management.
On Management Information Systems Another toolkit being developed is on MIS, with a focus on choice of IT. A workshop was held in Hyderabad on November 10-12, 2009.
Workshop and Events
Mobiles and Money India Conference MicroSave presented at the Mobiles and Money India Conference held in Mumbai, India on December 9-10, 2009.
Social Microfinance Though the microfinance sector has grown significantly and attracted many investors, at a global scale, supply of finance for the poor is far less than demand.
India Focus Notes -IFN 29: Potential for E-/M-Banking Enabled Migrant Remittances -IFN 28: Exploring Domestic Remittances as a New Line of Business for Indian MFIs
