On a recent visit to Bangalore, India, CGAP worked with Janalakshmi Financial Services to deepen their understanding of microentrepreneurs through research and qualitative discussions. They found that the conventional measures used to assess larger businesses, such as formal credit history, the enterprise’s size and the number of years it has been in business, often incompletely assess the business acumen of microentrepreneurs.
IDFC Bank is among India’s first private-sector banks to pilot digital financial services that leverage the country’s new Aadhaar-enabled payment systems (AEPS), which makes digital money more accessible and practical for everyday transactions than ever before. Now, to do anything from receiving government payments to buying groceries, all a customer in Royyuru needs is a unique Aadhaar identity number and fingerprint to authenticate the transaction.
The agricultural credit outreach in Pakistan has increased to 3.27 million farmers at end June 2017 from 2.40 million farmers last year. The State Bank of Pakistan explored new financing products, value chain financing, warehouse receipts financing, digitalisation of credit, execution of credit guarantee scheme for small and marginalised farmers, and inclusion of microfinance institutions/rural support programs for catering the credit needs of marginalised farmers.
Emirates Islamic Bank has integrated blockchain technology into cheques to strengthen their authenticity and minimize potential fraud. Referred to as ‘Cheque Chain,” the bank, like others are looking at opportunities to increase efficiency, cut costs and improve customer services. New business opportunities are also presenting themselves, especially related to identity.
Microfinance was deemed the solution to the financial constraints faced by poor households and entrepreneurs in developing countries. However, recent evidence suggests that providing small loans through microfinance institutions (MFIs) hasn’t quite lived up to the hype. Despite its resounding success bringing large numbers of individuals into the formal financial sector, traditional microcredit has failed at delivering credit to poor people in a way that is convenient, affordable and sustainable.
Former Head of Global Small Business at Visa, Janet Zablock has a new role as an Independent Board member at Nav Inc. Nav gives small businesses access to personal and business credit reports, cash flow analysis and lender-neutral marketplace that uses this data to connect them to the right financing for their situation.
OPIC Project Finance Director John Didiuk reflects on his recent attendance at the EBRD’s Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Cyprus, where he joined discussions about the investment climate in Ukraine. Since 2014, OPIC has more than quadrupled its portfolio to support the Ukraine’s growth and stability through greater private sector development. With multiple projects that support lending to local SMEs, OPIC has more than $500 million invested across 16 active projects to access financing.
Since Amazon Lending began in 2011, it has surpassed $3 billion in loans to small businesses. Recently, the company announced that it has surpassed $1 billion in small-business loans to more than 20,000 merchants involved in its Amazon Marketplace in the U.S. UK, and Japan during the past year. In fact, Amazon is making money from both the sales of products via its online platform and by charging interest on the loans.
The African Guarantee Fund’s (AGF) chief executive Felix Bikpo talks about their strategy to assist SMEs. Stating the main problem for SMEs as access to finance, Bikpo says their guarantee facility assists financial institutions in covering the risks often associated with SMEs financing. AGF’s activities have improved the SME sector in recent years. Today, AFG is in nearly 40 African countries through almost 100 financial institutions. The percentage of loans to SMEs has significantly improved as well.
In a previous analysis, we laid out the machine learning process we conducted for Destacame.cl, an investee of the Catalyst Fund, which provides alternative credit scoring to underbanked consumers in Latin America. For a firm like Destacame.cl, the investment in predictive algorithms for credit scoring is a no-brainer. It is an inherent part of their digital product and data-driven business model, and can be seamlessly incorporated. But what about for a brick-and-mortar financial institution that is just beginning to explore digital or more sophisticated technology applications?
