Grameen's strategy for empowering female entrepreneurs in the US

In the last six years, more than 28,000 women have received micro loans from Grameen America totaling over $150 million. Last week, the organization officially opened the doors of its first U.S. training institute in Queens, N.Y., which it will use to reach even more women across the country.  In partnership with Capital One (COF), the Robin Hood Foundation and Citibank (C), the new center will act as a training school for loan officers, who are crucial to Grameen's strategy of empowering female entrepreneurs.

Next Bank Europe 2014 - Barcelona - 18&19 September

NEXT BANK EUROPE is a collaborative conference that covers innovation, transformation and startup-driven disruption in financial services in Europe. NEXT BANK EUROPE recognizes that the new competitive environment resulting from exponential growth of new technologies, the rapid change in customer behavior and new business models presents a unique opportunity for players inside and outside the industry in an environment which is uncertain and volatile.

Solve funding issues to finance SMEs growth plans in India

The micro, small and medium enterprises are the backbone of economic development in India. They are the incubators for talent, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, which is essential for the country's development. Indian SME sector contributes 45% of the industrial output, 40% of the country's total exports, employs over 60 million people, creates 1.3 million jobs every year and produces more than 8,000 quality products for the domestic and international markets. With approximately 30 million SMEs in India, around 12 million people are expected to join the workforce in the next three years with the sector growing at a rate of 8% a year.The major hindrance in the expansion of SMEs is the unavailability of sufficient and timely funds to finance their growth plans. Banks have been making steady strides to bridge this gap. But the approach followed by banks to funding is restrictive as they create value by controlling and managing risk. In any loan application for a business, a bank has to necessarily evaluate the risks involved, gauge collateral support and the methods to mitigate those risks. There is a huge amount of paperwork involved and the process is cumbersome. Therefore, it is not always possible for an entrepreneur to satisfy all requirements and conditions the bank might pose. The above listed methods of financing are primarily debt financing, as sources of equity funding remain elusive in India.

An Interview with the Head of SME, Stanbic IBTC Bank - the First Nigerian Bank to Introduce Psychometric Testing for Creating SME Loans

Stanbic IBTC is the first Nigerian bank to introduce psychometric testing as a tool for creating Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Loans, which enables the Bank to offer loans to SMEs that pass the test within 72 hours with minimal documentation. In this interview Bukky Olajide, Head of SME, Stanbic IBTC Bank, discusses innovative ways to bridge the financing gap experienced by Nigerian SMEs.

IFC will Provide $30 million to Banco Regional in Paraguay to Enhance Access to Finance for Farmers and SMEs

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide $30 million to Banco Regional S.A.E.C.A. in Paraguay to expand access to finance for local farmers, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and exporters in the agribusiness sector. Agribusiness is a key driver of economic growth and job creation in Paraguay. IFC is providing financing to Banco Regional as part of the Global Warehouse Finance Program, which supports lending to the agriculture sector against warehouse receipts or similar collateral schemes to increase working capital. This provides farmers with liquidity and allows them to maximize the profit of their sales. 

Electronic Payments Innovation and SME Finance

For some time now the SME Finance Forum has been inviting innovators in payments technology to come to the World Bank/IFC to discuss their products. This is because we feel that the quicker, the more we move SMEs off cash onto electronic payments, the sooner we make them more bankable, particularly (but not exclusively) for credit. During June two exciting innovators came to visit. The first, Quisk, is a global technology company that partners with financial institutions and others to digitize cash and provide safe, simple and secure financial services and cash-less transactions for anyone with a mobile phone number. The company developed the first and only patent-pending mobile payments solution that uses just a mobile phone number and PIN, eliminating the requirement that a consumer carry cash, credit cards or even the physical mobile phone in order to purchase goods, redeem coupons and receive reward incentives. Quisk is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has operations in Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Jamaica, so far, with a keen interest in expanding their footprint in emerging markets.

The second firm, Ripple Labs, has developed an open payment system/ currency exchange/ remittance network. Ripple, an open-source, distributed payment protocol powering a new global value web, lets anyone, anywhere to send money in any currency, or any commodity, to anyone else. Its goal is to take electronic payments, which really have not had a major innovation since the 1970s, into the Internet age - but unlike Bitcoin, which got off on the wrong foot with regulators through an overly libertarian, piratical approach to disruption, Ripple is taking pains to bring the Federal Reserve and other authorities into this innovation process. They were recently recognized by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the “50 Smartest Companies of 2014”.  Ripple Labs was also named as a finalist for a 2014 PYMNTS Innovator Award in two separate categories: Best New Technology as well as Most Disruptive Company.   

Both of these innovations could help SMEs, and smaller firms in particular, by lowering their cost of doing business with their business partners and their customers, while providing a treasure trove of information that could enable smart financial institutions to lower their costs of acquiring and serving this market segment. We shall be following both firms closely as they move into emerging markets.

 

Can better finance help Latin America's microenterprises take the next step?

According to a recent World Bank report, "a massive 60 percent of Latin America employees work for businesses with five or fewer employees." And while the region generates a high number of new businesses, these companies grow much more slowly than their counterparts in other middle-income regions. In short, in the words of World Bank economist Augusto de la Torre, Latin American companies "tend to start small, and stay small."

Reflections on 'Power Shift 2014 - Women in Finance' by Linda Scott

Last week of May, the second annual Oxford Forum for Women in the World Economy—more popularly known as “Power Shift”--gathered at the Saïd Business School for an intensive two days’ focus on financial inclusion for women. Once again, I was struck by the concentrated passion of the participants, their activist use of new data about women around the world, and their optimistic determination to improve conditions everywhere by closing the gender gap.Women’s exclusion from the financial system is a global phenomenon with measurable dimensions and known negative effects. Massive data sets and multiple analyses predict that the benefits of better inclusion would range from reducing poverty to improving productivity to better corporate governance. Women’s financial inclusion, therefore, is an agenda all world citizens should share.

Subscribe to