Social Accountability of Microfinance Institutions in South Asian Region

The purpose of the study is to examine the social accountability and argue comparison of outreach level of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in member countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The inquiry has employed quantitative research approach to meticulous secondary data that has quantify using financial ratio and multiple regression analysis. Our results expose that gross loan portfolio (GLP) has a significant positive relation with the number of clients served. Conversely, the average loan balance per borrower per gross national income per capital and average outstanding balance have significant negative relation to the dependent variable. On the other hand, the yield on a GLP, size of MFIs and operational self-sufficiency has insignificant effect to the number of active borrowers. Eventually the study found no evidence of trade-off between profitability and outreach breadth. However, interest rate, board and ownership structure and outreach depth issue suggested for the further studies