Microfinance

Microfinance is a planet-wide movement making a huge difference in millions of lives.

It can strengthen communities by retaining and building wealth – loans, savings, payment services and insurance are just as useful to the poor as the affluent.  Microfinance also teaches us how people can work hard to create better lives. In our globalised world it offers us a chance to participate in meaningful grass-roots development. For more about microfinance, visit the Microfinance Gateway.

Microfinance in Australia is just beginning – although there’s a lot of great stuff happening. I’m about to embark on a survey of microfinance in Australia — as part of my masters in international and community development at Deakin University. I am also working on developing a social business — socially responsible but ‘not-for-loss’ – that helps fund microfinance in Asia Pacific — a cross between Kiva and Unitus.

If you’re interested in microfinance, let’s talk.

Mark Swivel

Favourite Microfinance Institutions

• CompartamosBanco – The profit-driven poverty-reduction business!
• Fonkoze – The Haitian powerhouse! What a story.
• Grameen Bank – The pioneers, with their loan book now at USD 743m to Sept 2009
• Jamii Bora – Showing microfinance can work in Africa! And do more than loans.
• SafeSave – There’s much more to microfinance than credit. A quiet success story.

Other Microfinance Players

• Kiva – A well-known microfinance charity lending millions to MFIs.
• Microfinance Gateway – The place for analysis and resources on microfinance.
• MicroPlace – A social investment marketplace (US).
• MIX Market – The place for data on microfinance.

Celebrity Scholars

• Beatrice Armendariz
• Esther Duflo
• Jonathan Morduch