Completing the Kayin Project

Monday will be the culmination of a development project in Kayin State, Myanmar. A conference will showcase the results of the three-year project – a registered cooperative with savings and lending service as well as an e-money service, and an enterprise and agri-business enhancement component for the borrowing members. In 2014, the project started six…

Microfinance reality check

The Wall St. Journal recently published an important article on microfinance (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/03/18/calls-grow-for-a-new-microloans-model/). The article wasn’t important because what it said was news. The industry has known for years that very few well-designed studies have been able to detect a measurable impact from microfinance on poverty. No, what was important about the article was that if…

WORM’S EYE VIEW: THE YUNUS PERSPECTIVE

Photo source: Yunus book homepage In an emerging economy like Myanmar, how can development be hastened and reduce, if not totally eradicate poverty? Prof. Mohammad Yunus, Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank shared his experience in a forum in Yangon organized by actionaid, an international NGO, the National Economic and Social Advisory Council (NESAC)…

Notes on the QSEM

The Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring (QSEM) is a study conducted annually by Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), a multi-donor platform, to look at the changes resulting from the development interventions in various parts of Myanmar. The Round 4 of the QSEM conducted from March to May 2014 involving 1,474 respondents was recently…

Myanmar Microfinance Updates

The Microfinance Working Group is an informal network of microfinance institutions in Myanmar who regularly meet every two months to share updates and discuss issues affecting the industry. The first meeting for 2015 was hosted by BRAC Myanmar in their Yangon office. Among the challenges discussed during the meeting are the following: Most of the…

10 Things to Know about Microfinance in Myanmar

Photo: Myanmar Insider There is an increasing interest in business in Myanmar as the country opens up its economy to the rest of the world. One of these is financial services, particularly ‘microfinance’ which has evolved from informal moneylenders and stereotyped “loan sharks” into a billion-dollar global industry with commercial investors participating, stock market listing…

Sustainable Cooperatives: Alternative financial support systems for the poor

An emerging economic order The ASEAN economic integration scheduled to be fully implemented in 2015 will have great impact on the people of the region. Designed to be a common production and marketing unit, goods and services will flow freely among its member-countries and will trigger a survival-of-the-fittest mode for businesses in the region. As…

The future of microfinance and the financial inclusion conundrum

“Innovation” seems to be the buzzword nowadays in the microfinance industry. Articles with titles like “We need disruption in financial inclusion”(1) or “How Big Data can expand financial opportunities for the world’s poor”(2) or extolling the digital finance “revolution”(3) are commonplace in today’s literature regarding financial inclusion. The belief structure underlying this emphasis on innovation…