Research & Analysis

Exploring Client Preferences in Microfinance

Microfinance products tend to be uniform across large geographic areas. For example, in Bangladesh most microfinance institutions (MFIs) offer some variant of the product pioneered by Grameen Bank—a loan with a term of about a year, repaid in frequent (usually weekly) installments, given in a group context, ostensibly for micro-enterprise use, and with a compulsory savings element.

Assessing the Relative Poverty Level of MFI Clients, Case Studies

The Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT) was developed for CGAP by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The multi-dimensional Poverty Index constructed by the tool is targeted at donors and investors who require a standardized, globally applicable set of poverty indicators to make poverty-focused funding decisions and to compare MFIs across regions and countries.

Raising the Curtain on the "Microfinancial Services Era"

From the ‘agricultural credit era’ (1950s–1970s) through the ‘microenterprise era,’ institutional arrangements and product designs that characterized financial services to the poor were underpinned by a dominant image of the poor.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Don’t Join

Understanding client exit and nonparticipation can shed important light on the financial service preferences of clients and help programs learn about the limitations of their existing products and mechanisms. Such lessons can drive the development of innovative, demand-driven microfinance products and systems, benefiting both the institution and the clients.

Microfinance and Risk Management: A Client Perspective

As the microfinance industry matures, service providers are increasingly concerned with developing new and better products. This focus on new product development is a response to growing competition in the microfinance market, the search for more defined market niches, and some anxiety about dropout rates.

The Rush to Regulate: Legal Frameworks for Microfinance

This Occasional Paper discusses a wide range of issues concerning regulation of microfinance and presents a range of alternative mechanisms for supervision.

Focus on Poverty: CGAP 2000

This document describes ongoing CGAP thematic work on deepening the poverty outreach of MFIs.

Measuring Microcredit Delinquency

This Occasional Paper addresses issues surrounding measuring microcredit delinquency rates. Not only can poor ratios mislead donors, they can also obscure urgent problems from microfinance institution managers until it is too late to reverse them.

CGAP’s Pilot Microfinance Capacity-Building Initiative in Africa

In April 1997, the CGAP Secretariat launched an experiment called the CGAP Pilot Microfinance Capacity-building Initiative in Africa. The initiative spanned East and West Africa and focused primarily on working with African training institutes to provide financial management courses to microfinance institutions (MFIs). The Pilot Initiative sought to build the foundation for the development of a market for quality training and technical assistance services offered on a sustainable basis in the region.

External Audits of Microfinance Institutions, Vol 2

This is volume 2 of External Audits of Microfinance Institutions. It is for external auditors.