The Chennai-headquartered Shriram Group has historically been involved in lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including individual borrowers.

When it comes to financing for entrepreneurs, this week marked a major event in the financial industry of the United States with immense potential ramifications for the developing world. This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s unanimously approved rules for equity crowdfunding.

A thin ray of hope is emerging today from The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of the most war-ravaged and anarchic countries in the world.
Today, a revival of the country’s coffee industry is bringing peace, hope and better livelihoods to battle-scarred farmers living in the fertile, eastern highlands of the Lake Kivu region, just across Rwanda’s border. Root Capital is proud to play a part in this nascent and fragile renaissance with the recent financing of three far-reaching smallholder coffee farmer associations, Sopacdi, Muungano and Furaha.

Over the next decade, the entrance into the economic mainstream of a billion women worldwide will have a greater impact than the economic growth among the billion-plus populations of China and India, according to a report from Booz & Company.

The drum is beating ever-louder from economists, development experts and advocates who insist that women and girls are the key to nearly everything needed for a sustainable future, from global health to food security to economic growth. In business, mounting evidence shows women’s leadership correlates with long-term outperformance.

“If we knew how to value gender in finance, really, we’d be smarter investors, period,” says Joy Anderson, the head of Criterion Institute, who produced the “convergence” of gender-lens leaders earlier this month in Hartford, Conn.

Countries that take steps to empower women as employees and entrepreneurs can reap social and economic benefits.
This report ranks 128 countries based on their track record in enabling women to play a substantial role in the global economy.

On Wednesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission agreed on a proposal for groundbreaking rules that would allow almost anyone to buy shares of stock in start-up companies.The rules, if approved after a three-month comment period and review, will mean crowdfunding portals can open up to the general public. And, to concerned investor advocates, it also means a whole new set of investment pitfalls and potential frauds to watch out for.But the United States isn’t the first country to tiptoe into start-up investing free-for-all, and Americans have much to learn from recent forays into crowdfunding abroad.

The FI2020 Global Forum in London gets underway this Sunday with a pre-Forum side meeting on financial inclusion for persons with disabilities (PWDs). This client-centric start feels like a fitting precursor for an event to expand financial inclusion.Financial inclusion requires that financial services meet the unique needs of all clients, especially the needs of the most underserved and vulnerable client groups. Sessions throughout the Forum reflect this key tenet. In addition, there are side meetings on the Financial Capability Roadmap and the Consumer Protection Roadmap, focused on moving these roadmap principles and recommendations to action. These and the other three financial inclusion roadmaps were developed through a consultative process that collected and incorporated the perspectives of specific client groups. Among Forum participants are representatives of various client segments – such as PWDs, women, the elderly, youth, rural populations, and migrants – to help raise awareness of their unique needs and assets

The crowdfunding service Kickstarter reached an important milestone last week. The company’s website reported that Kickstarter has now funded over 50,000 projects, with pledges coming from over 5,000,000 individual backers. Since its founding in 2009, Kickstarter has helped fledgling projects raise nearly $1 billion in donations.But those impressive numbers may be eclipsed by a revolution in venture financing that is only being held back by final government approval: start-ups raising actual investment funds from individuals in exchange for equity or a share of profits.

Bank lending in the Middle East and North Africa is still not sufficiently reaching the private sector, in particular small-and-medium-sized enterprises, posing an obstacle to faster economic growth in the region, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF).SMEs are finding it tough to gain access to credit markets with an average of only 8% of all regional bank lending directed at that part of the economy, according to World Bank figures. Lending to the private sector in the MENA countries is that constrained it lags other emerging regions such as Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This report outlines recent research substantiating the contribution of the private sector and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular for new job creation and investment. It also highlights availability and gaps in SME funding, including for specific subsectors such as women-owned firms and agri-enterprises. New findings and trends highlight the potential of collaborative platforms that have emerged from the G20/GPFI process to combine resources to improve SME access to finance.