This paper has been prepared on the basis of the recorded deliberations of the participants attended in the conference “Microfinance in SAARC Countries: Sharing Lessons & Way forward” organized in November-December, 2010, jointly by the Institute of Microfinance (InM), Bangladesh, and Rural...

Although, interest rate charged by microfinance stimulate of lot of ethical debate. Very few studies in microfinance detail the cost components of interest rates paid by the borrowers. Setting the optimal interest rate with a dual goal of financial sustainability and fighting against poverty is...

Microcredit has expanded rapidly in recent years but its effect at the household level is still controversial and there is little empirical evidence on its externalities to the non-borrowers. This paper estimates the effect of participation in microcredit programs on expenditure and savings both...

We examine the relationship between financial sustainability and client outreach in microfinance institutions. Financial ratios are used to proxy financial performance. Outreach is captured in two dimensions, depth or how poor the clients are and breadth or how many people the program is...

We examine the question: “In the context of gender dimension what is the evidence of the impact of the financial inclusion programs on poor households represented by women relative to that represented by men?” By constructing a good counterfactual and comparison group, we employ the...

Microcredit has expanded rapidly in recent years but its effect at the household level is still controversial. This paper uses a unique dataset collected from 69 villages in Bangladesh during the period 2006-2007 to estimates the effect of participation in microcredit programs on household...

In the microfinance industry the idea of “empowerment” is often valued as a means to encourage female emancipation from male domination. This paper’s main purpose is to draw on women’s testimonies and narratives to highlight the fundamental importance within these processes of women’s...

The boom of microfinance and its high profits in emerging countries has raised interest in this sector of investors in developed countries. The question to be addressed is how venture capital will help this MFI scale its business and profits? Can developed country investors, facing a lack of...

This study examines whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) that serve women borrowers at the base of the economic pyramid are likely to adopt a written code of positive organizational ethics (POE). Using econometric analysis of operational and economic data of a sample of MFIs from across the...

This article critically assess digital finance as a pro-poor intervention in the development finance space. It examines the turn from ‘microfinance for the poor' to ‘digital finance for the poor'. It then considers three key issues and contest the argument that digital finance is pro-poor....