The paper reviews the innovations developed by some financial institutions to meet the challenges of microfinance and rural finance markets. Innovations could be new products and methodologies or refinements to existing practices that are created in response to market inefficiencies and changing...

This study assesses the state of microinsurance in the country, identifies the players and their performance, and the challenges facing microinsurance development. The term micro pertains to the capacity of a program to handle the small, sometime irregular cash flows of poor households, who have...

Microfinance is an emerging important financial subsector in Asian transition countries. Its role is to improve financial access of the poor and small economic players and thus help them to build assets, thereby contribute to poverty alleviation. This paper provides an overview of rural finance...

The paper discusses critical land issues in the Philippines and assesses the integration of those issues in the national development agenda and poverty reduction strategies. It covers issues related to agriculture, forest and urban lands, land administration and management and government...

Credit is important because economic agents in the agriculture sector who are constrained by liquidity problems may produce sub-optimal outputs. This paper reviews the past and present Philippine agricultural credit and banking policies. It identifies the principal issues in rural credit markets...

While the CARP under the Aquino administration is expected to bring beneficial result, it may also carry with it adverse effects. One aspect that is expected to be affected is the availability and accessibility of credit in the fisheries industry. This paper reviews the existing literature on...

The Philippine credit cooperatives have grown in financial resources and membership over the last three decades. These cooperatives are self-reliant and self-sustaining. This paper is an attempt to assess the importance and potential impact of any further sectoral development and to identify...

The shift to a market-oriented credit and financial policy was expected to spur rural financing by the private sector that would help usher growth in the agriculture and rural areas. However, the rural areas have continued to suffer from the lack of access to financial services of banks. Despite...

The recent currency and financial turmoil in East Asia have led to the evaluation of current financial and macroeconomic policies. The Philippines, which has been the worst hit in the 1980 economic crisis has indicated greater resilience in the 1990 financial crisis. Experts have attributed this...

Innovation in credit programs has alleviated poverty. The premise is that credit accessibility translates into productive activities that aid households to battle poverty. Despite this, the formal rural lending institutions are meeting only a very small percentage of the rural demand for credit....