Regulation allows microfinance institutions to evolve more fully into banks, particularly for institutions aiming to … draw on a new database that combines high-quality financial data on 245 of the world’s largest microfinance institutions … profitability. The pattern is consistent with the notion that profit-oriented microfinance institutions absorb the cost of …

microfinance institutions. They find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is … lending contracts (rather than the group lending methods favored by microfinance nongovernmental organizations). The analysis …

This paper describes important trade-offs that microfinance practitioners, donors, and regulators navigate. Drawing … evidence from large, global surveys of microfinance institutions, the authors find a basic tension between meeting social goals … and maximizing financial performance. For example, non-profit microfinance institutions make far smaller loans on average …

Microfinance institutions have proved the possibility of providing reliable banking services to poor customers. Their … second aim is to do so in a commercially-viable way. This paper analyzes the tensions and opportunities of microfinance as it … embraces the market, drawing on a data set that includes 346 of the world's leading microfinance institutions and covers nearly …