The microfinance industry has long speculated about potential trade-offs between financial and social goals. While struggling to achieve rapid growth, serve more clients, improve portfolio quality, and become financially sustainable, microfinance institutions (MFIs) with a double bottom line...

The rapid adoption of mobile money transfer (MMT) in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is facilitating a nexus of inter-personal financial transfers which has hitherto been the least visible dimension of informal finance. At the same time, the success of capturing these flows into a formal...

This paper is concerned with the recent history of microfinance, both for itself and as a case study of the evolution of development ideas and activities. Doing justice to this history, and to all those involved in it will not be easy. Rather than aiming for a full narrative this paper asks what...

Establishing financially inclusive ecosystems for low-income clients, including small and medium enterprises, has become a rising global concern. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and the World Bank estimate that around 2.7 billion adults worldwide do not have access to credit,...