The number of people around the world who have access to microcredit financing has fallen for the first time in 13 years, reflecting turmoil in the sector and fall out from the global financial crisis.  The total number of people with access to microloans and other financial services fell by 10 million in 2011 compared to 2010.  The sector had ballooned since the 1990s, reaching hundreds of millions of people and … Read More >>

With the current global economic crisis going on, people are asking many questions about how microfinance will handle the situation, and to what degree MFIs will be affected. As I was thinking about this, I asked myself “am I making the right decisions when I lend?”  I am always interested in learning about new lending platforms and usually just give each one of them a fair trial and then determine … Read More >>

It seems just about every week, a journalist somewhere in the world will write a piece on microfinance and the effects the worldwide credit crisis will have on the sector. Most journalists and experts alike are optimistic that microfinance will weather the storm and could even be “the answer” to the international investment predicament we are slipping further and further into (find the article here: Raksin, Huffington Post). An article by … Read More >>

For those of you who are interested in microfinance (I hope everyone reading this blog), there’s an article on the Huffington Post written by Alex Raksin worth reading. It came as a result of discussion at the World Economic Summit in Davos and talked about how microfinance may be one of the few areas of growth in this worldwide economic crisis we’re experiencing. Where should leaders look to find a … Read More >>

Time magazine has an a great interview with Mary Ellen Iskenderian, the CEO of Women’s World Banking.  In the article, Ms Iskenderian discusses the current global financial crisis and the future of microfinance, including a few new innovative ideas that the Women’s World Banking is developing.

I was reading a good article on livemint.com called “Big Microfinance Firms Taking Over Clients of Smaller Players,” and in it Vikram Akula, the founder and CEO of SKS Microfinance, discusses how smaller MFIs are having a hard time getting funding, so SKS is helping out a lot of their recipients: “Banks are lending only to large MFIs. We are in a strong position. We are holding discussions with MFIs … Read More >>

Last month Ryan Calkins started a discussions about whether or not the global financial crisis will hurt microfinance.  CGAP is currently hosting a Virtual Conference on the Financial Crisis and I’ve seen some pretty interesting articles to add to the debate from last month: Crunch time for microfinance ctd Microfinance and the financial crisis How the credit crisis effects microfinance